56 Landscape Gardening 



intricacy in the grounds of a residence by various modes of 

 arrangement; to give a highly elegant or polished air to 

 places by introducing rare and foreign species; and to con- 

 ceal all defects of surface, disagreeable views, unsightly 

 buildings, or other offensive objects. 



As uniformity, and grandeur of single effects, were the 

 aim of the old style of arrangement, so variety and har- 

 mony of the whole are the results for which we labor in the 

 modern landscape. And as the avenue, or the straight line, 

 is the leading form in the geometric arrangement of plan- 

 tations, so let us enforce it upon our readers, the group is 

 equally the key-note of the modern style. The smallest 

 place, having only three trees, may have these pleasingly 

 connected in a group; and the largest and finest park - 

 the Blenheim or Chalsworth, of seven miles square, is only 

 composed of a succession of groups, becoming masses, 

 thickets, woods. If a demesne with the most beautiful sur- 

 face and views has been for some time stiffly and awkwardly 

 planted, it is exceedingly difficult to give it a natural and 

 agreeable air; while many a tame level, with scarcely a 

 glimpse of distance, has been rendered lovely by its charm- 

 ing groups of trees. How necessary, therefore, is it, in the 

 very outset, that the novice, before he begins to plant, 

 should know how to arrange a tasteful group! 



Nothing, at first thought, would appear easier than to 

 arrange a few trees in the form of a natural and beautiful 

 group, - - and nothing really is easier to the practised hand. 

 Yet experience has taught us that the generality of persons, 

 in commencing their first essays in ornamental planting, 

 almost invariably crowd their trees into a close, regular 

 clump, which has a most formal and unsightly appearance, 

 as different as possible from the easy, flowing outline of 

 the group. 



"Natural groups are full of openings and hollows, of 

 trees advancing before, or retiring behind each other; all 

 productive of intricacy, of variety, of deep shadows and 

 brilliant lights." 



The chief care, then, which is necessary in the formation 



