58 Landscape Gardening 



Where there are large masses of wood to regulate and 

 arrange, much skill, taste, and judgment are requisite to 

 enable the proprietors to preserve only what is really beau- 

 tiful and picturesque, and to remove all that is superfluous. 

 Most of our native woods, too, have grown so closely, and 

 the trees are consequently so much drawn up, that should 

 the improver thin out any portion, at once, to single trees, 

 he will be greatly disappointed if he expects them to stand 

 long; for the first severe autumnal gale will almost cer- 

 tainly prostrate them. The only method, therefore, is to 

 allow them to remain in groups of considerable size at first, 

 and to thin them out as is finally desired, when they have 

 made stronger roots and become more inured to the influence 

 of the sun and air. 



But to return to grouping; what we have already en- 

 deavored to render familiar to the reader, may be called 

 grouping in its simple meaning - - for general effect, and 

 with an eye only to the natural beauty of pleasing forms. 

 Let us now explain, as concisely as we may, the mode of 

 grouping in the two schools of Landscape Gardening here- 

 tofore defined, that is to say, grouping and planting for 

 Beautiful effect, and for Picturesque effect; as we wish it 

 understood that these two different expressions, in artificial 

 landscape, are always to a certain extent under our control. 



Planting and Grouping to produce the Beautiful. The ele- 

 mentary features of this expression our readers will remem- 

 ber to be fulness and softness of outline, and perfectly 

 luxuriant development. To insure these in plantations, we 

 must commence by choosing mainly trees of graceful habit 

 and flowing outlines; and of this class of trees, hereafter 

 more fully illustrated, the American elm and the maple may 

 be taken as the type. Next, in disposing them, they must 

 usually be planted rather distant in the groups, and often 

 singly. We do not mean by this, that close groups may 

 not occasionally be formed, but there should be a predomi- 

 nance of trees grouped at such a distance from each other 

 as to allow a full development of the branches on every 

 side. Or, when a close group is planted, the trees compos- 



