LANDSCAPE PECULIARITIES. 91 



to their natural open growth, (for ship-timber, and, while they 

 stand, for castle shades,) therefore branching low and spread 

 ing wide, and more beautiful, much more beautiful, than 

 we often allow our trees to make themselves. The less fre 

 quent brilliancy of broad streams or ponds of water, also dis 

 tinguishes the prospect from those we are accustomed to, 

 though there are often small brooks or pools, and much 

 marshy land, and England may be called a well-watered 

 country. In the foreground you will notice the quaint build 

 ings, generally pleasing objects in themselves, often support 

 ing what is most agreeable of all, and that you can never fail 

 to admire, never see any thing ugly or homely under, a cur 

 tain of ivy or other creepers ; the ditches and the banks by 

 their side, on which the hedges are planted ; the clean and 

 careful cultivation, and general tidiness of the agriculture ; 

 and the deep, narrow, crooked, gulche-like lane, or the smooth, 

 clean, matchless, broad highway. Where trees are set in 

 masses for ornament, the Norway spruce and the red beech 

 generally give a dark, ponderous tone, which we seldom see 

 in America; and in a hilly and unfertile country there are 

 usually extensive patches of the larch, having a brown hue. 

 The English elm is the most common tree in small parks or 

 about country-houses. It appears, at a little distance, more 

 like our hickory, when the latter grows upon a rich soil, and 

 is not cramped, as sometimes in our river intervals, than any 

 other American tree. 



There seems to me to be a certain peculiarity in English 

 foliage, w r hich I can but little more than allude to, not having 

 the skill to describe. You seem to see each particular leaf, 

 (instead of a confused leafiness,) more than in our trees ; or 

 it is as if the face of each leaf was parallel, and more 

 equally lighted than in our foliage. It is perhaps only 

 owing to a greater densitv. and better filling up, and more 



