ORNAMENTAL PLANTING. 



IN the preceding parts of this treatise we have confined ourselves almost 

 entirely to planting for profit, and have merely enumerated with brief 

 remarks those trees, which, though incapable of being cultivated with 

 advantage in our climate for economical purposes, produce striking effects 

 in landscape scenery, and are of great value in the adornment of parks 

 arid pleasure grounds. They are not for the most part scarce in the 

 nurseries of Great Britain, yet as we have observed that the planting of 

 exotic trees is comparatively neglected, a few pages may be not unpro- 

 fitably occupied, in pointing out such as seem peculiarly deserving of 

 attention. 



The beauty of English park scenery is universally admitted: the con- 

 stant source of fresh admiration to foreigners, and of delight to our- 

 selves, it may, perhaps, be briefly described, as the art of imitating, in 

 small compass, the most lovely scenes of external nature. In a pursuit so 

 fascinating, the most elegant mind may find amusement, the most active 

 benevolence room in which to dilate. In eliciting from crude materials 

 new forms of beauty ; in opening the valley ; converting the barren hill- 

 side into wood ; in expanding the lake, and clothing a once naked district 

 with luxuriance, the worth of an estate is increased, health improved, and 

 charity the most useful dispensed, for 



* Hence the poor are clothed, the hungry fed, 



Health to himself, and to his children bread, 



The labourer bears.' 



The general practice cannot be much improved, but some beauties of 

 detail may be gained, by a more frequent employment of foreign vege- 

 tation. Every one is aware of the charming effect of the weeping willow: 

 this is a case in point. The light ramifications of the Robinia contrast 

 beautifully with the bolder form of the oak; the hiccory, or black 

 American walnut, relieves the heavy masses of the elm; the lucid green 

 of the Spanish chestnut is well opposed to the dinginess of the beech ; 

 and the brilliant tints of many North American trees when in decay add a 

 new and remarkable feature to the autumnal landscape. But the interest 

 arising from the adoption of foreign trees into domestic scenery is not 

 confined to their picturesque effects* They remind us of the climes 

 whence they come, of the scenes with which they were associated. In 

 exploring a well-selected arboretum, the eternal snows of the Himalaya, 

 the savannahs of the Missouri, the untrodden forests of Patagonia, the 

 vallies of Lebanon, pass in review before us : we seem to wander in 

 other climes, to converse with other nations. 



Although few foreign trees become permanent with us, many bear our 

 climate well, yet, tried by the test of spontaneous propagation seem 

 not to be capable of perfect naturalization. No genus is of more frequent 

 occurrence in England than the hardy lime-tree, of which at least three 

 nearly allied species inhabit the continent. In European Russia they 

 abound, and supply the bark from which the mats so largely used in our 

 gardens are made. Here, though with attention the lime may be raised 

 from seeds, nothing is rarer than to meet with a spontaneous seedling, 

 even near individuals of great size, covered with myriads of seeds, ma- 

 ture, but, by some.unsuitableness of climate, bereaved of competent vigour 



K 



