Wood and Plantations 79 



appropriate for introduction in highly-cultivated scenery, 

 or landscapes where the character is that of graceful or 

 polished beauty; as they harmonize with almost all 

 scenes, buildings, and natural or artificial objects, uniting 

 well with other forms and doing violence to no expression 

 of scenery. From the numerous breaks in the surface of 

 their foliage, which reflect differently the lights and produce 

 deep shadows, there is great intricacy and variety in the 

 heads of many round-topped trees; and therefore, as an 

 outer surface to meet the eye in a plantation, they are 

 much softer and more pleasing than the unbroken line 

 exhibited by the sides of oblong or spiry-topped trees. The 

 sky outline also, or the upper part of the head, varies 

 greatly in round-topped trees from the irregularity in the 

 disposition of the upper branches in different species, as 

 the oak and ash, or even between individual specimens of 

 the same kind of tree, as the oak, of which we rarely see 

 two trees alike in form and outline, although they have 

 the same characteristic expression; while on the other hand 

 no two verdant objects can bear a greater general resem- 

 blance to each other and show more sameness of figure than 

 two Lombardy poplars. 



"In a tree," says Uvedale Price, "of which the foliage 

 is everywhere full and unbroken, there can be but little 

 variety of form; then, as the sun strikes only on the sur- 

 face, neither can there be much variety of light and shade; 

 and as the apparent color of objects changes according to 

 the different degrees of light or shade in which they are 

 placed, there can be as little variety of tint; and lastly, as 

 there are none of these openings that excite and nourish 

 curiosity, but the eye is everywhere opposed by one uni- 

 form leafy screen, there can be as little intricacy as variety." 

 From these remarks, it will be perceived that even among 

 round-headed trees there may be great difference in the com- 

 parative beauty of different sorts; and judging from the ex- 

 cellent standard here laid down, it will also be seen how much 

 in the eye of a painter a tree with a beautifully diversified 

 surface, as the oak, surpasses in the composition of a scene 



