RELATIONS OF TREES TO ORNAMENT. 385 



formation to those I have described, that no important 

 difference could be discovered. But in their present as- 

 pect, caused by the different management of the proprie- 

 tors, no two places, originally so similar, could be more 

 unlike. My aesthetic neighbor has made a grand display 

 of the fine arts upon his estate. The grounds immediately 

 adjoining his house are indeed a museum of Grecian my- 

 thology in marble. The topiary art has also been em- 

 ployed to an extreme. Clumps of shrubbery appear in 

 the shape of domes and pyramids, and clipped hedge-rows 

 are substituted for all artificial fences, and for their main- 

 tenance he has removed the stone-walls and their beau- 

 tiful border growths of shrubbery, which are so pleasing 

 a feature on the rustic farm. 



He would tolerate none of those straight rows of trees, 

 the charming growth of accident, by the sides of his fences. 

 He could not bear any such formality. Having broken 

 them up according to a modern canon of taste that con- 

 demns all straight lines, he has planted around the few 

 trees which are allowed to remain a number of others, to 

 form artistic groups, and to deceive Nature into the belief 

 that they are her spontaneous creation. For, as a student 

 of aesthetics, he has discovered that Nature plants her trees 

 in bundles, with delightful spaces of lawn between them, 

 and not, as the naturalist and forester have always ob- 

 served, in tangled confusion. The weeds and tufts of sedge 

 and brambles have been so thoroughly eradicated that not 

 even a spike of panic-grass is left from which a sparrow 

 might peck a few nutritious seeds. Not a bird could find 

 a bush or a tussock in which he might nestle. The whole 

 feathered tribe are banished from the grounds, while, on the 

 adjoining farm, they assemble and sing and gladden every 

 scene by their presence. The only wild birds here are 

 visitors from adjoining farms ; but their absence is sup- 

 plied by a splendid aviary, where many foreign songsters, 



17 Y 



