86 Landscape (Gardening 



composing them may be made so as not to violate correct 

 principles of taste. An indiscriminate mixture of their 

 different forms would, it is evident, produce anything but 

 an agreeable effect. For example, let a person plant to- 

 gether in a group, three trees of totally opposite forms and 

 expressions, viz., a weeping willow, an oak, and a poplar; 

 and the expression of the whole would be destroyed by 

 the confusion resulting from their discordant forms. On 

 the other hand, the mixture of trees that exactly corresponds 

 in their forms, if these forms, as in oblong or drooping trees, 

 are similar, will infallibly create sameness. In order then 

 to produce beautiful variety which shall neither on the 

 one side run into confusion, nor on the other verge into 

 monotony, it is requisite to give some little attention to the 

 harmony of form and color in the composition of trees in 

 artificial plantations. 



The only rules which we can suggest to govern the 

 planter are these: First, if a certain leading expression is 

 desired in a group of trees, together with as great a variety 

 as possible, such species must be chosen as harmonize with 

 each other in certain leading points. And, secondly, in 

 occasionally intermingling trees of opposite characters, dis- 

 cordance may be prevented, and harmonious expression 

 promoted, by interposing other trees of an intermediate 

 character. 



In the first case, suppose it is desired to form a group of 

 trees, in which gracefulness must be the leading expression. 

 The willow alone would have the effect; but in groups, 

 willows alone produce sameness: in order therefore, to give 

 variety, we must choose other trees which, while they differ 

 from the willow in some particulars, agree in others. The 

 elm has much larger and darker foliage, while it has also a 

 drooping spray; the weeping birch differs in its leaves, but 

 agrees in the pensile flow of its branches; the common 

 birch has few pendent boughs, but resembles in the airy 

 lightness of its leaves; and the three-thorned acacia, 

 though its branches are horizontal, has delicate foliage of 

 nearly the same hue and floating lightness as the willow. 



