ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 97 



But clumps, like compact bodies of soldiers, resist attacks 

 from all quarters ; examine them in every point of view ; 

 walk round and round them ; no opening, no vacancy, no 

 stragglers ; but in the true military character, Us sont face 

 •partout !"* 



The chief care, then, which is necessary in the forma- 

 tion of groups, is, not to place them in any regular or 

 artificial manner, — as one at each corner of a triangle, 

 square, octagon, or other many-sided figure ; but so to 

 dispose them, as that the whole may exhibit the variety, 

 connexion, and intricacy seen in nature. " The greatest 

 beauty of a group of trees," says Loudon, " as far as 

 respects their stems, is in the varied direction these take 

 as they grow into trees ; but as that is, for all practical 

 purposes, beyond the influence of art, all we can do, is to 

 vary as much as possible the ground plan of groups, or 

 the relative positions which the stems have to each other 

 where they spring from the earth. This is considerable, 

 even where a very few' trees are used, of which any 

 person may convince himself by placing a few dots on 

 paper. Thus two trees (fig. 18), or a tree and shrub, 

 which is the smallest group (a), may be placed in three 

 different positions with reference to a spectator in a fixed 

 point ; if he moves round them, they will first vary in form 

 separately, and next unite in one or two groups, according 

 to the position of the spectator. In like manner, three 



* Those who peruse Price's " Essay on the Picturesque," cannot fail to bt 

 entertained with the vigor with which he advocates the picturesque, and 

 attacks the clumping method of laying out grounds, so much practised in Eng- 

 land on the first introduction of the modem style. Brown was the grea' 

 practitioner at that time, and his favorite mode seems to have been to covei 

 the whole surface of the grounds with an unmeaning assemblage of round 

 bunchy clumps. 



7 



