IN THE "RAMBLE"— FOURTH 

 EXCURSION 



"I shall be your faithful guide 

 Through this gloomy covert wide." 



— Milton. 



AMID such a labyrinth of paths as is found in the 

 '' Ramble," no precise route can be laid down, 

 as in our previous excursions ; but the actual 

 area is so small that a little patience will bring to view 

 most of the large assortment there collected. It would 

 be difficult, also, to state the precise number of tree- 

 species in this most highly cultivated portion of the 

 grounds ; it must be almost or quite a hundred, as I 

 found nearly eighty in a single walk through it. With- 

 out cataloguing the contents, therefore, we will describe 

 briefly some of the more interesting or rare sorts that 

 make this perhaps the most favorable spot in the entire 

 Park for this study. 



Holly. — A beautiful tree or shrub — usually with the 

 figure of the first and the height of the second — is the 

 holly, too rarely seen, whose graceful, glossy, leathery, 

 and evergreen leaf is unrivalled in its kind. Florists 

 are quite as much to be praised and blamed for what is 

 found in lawns as the owners themselves, whose igno- 

 rance very often compels them to leave the selection of 



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