VI. 



GROUPING AND MASSING OF TREES AND 

 SHRUBS. 



F we examine the composition of some of the 

 most beautiful scenery in a young wood or 

 copse, where the majority of trees and shrubs 

 have sprung from seeds, we find they are gen- 

 erally formed in the following manner: A 

 young tree, just reaching maturity, is standing alone in an 

 uncultivated field ; numerous seedlings spring up around its 

 base, and in a few years we have a small group around the 

 mother tree. The younger trees vary in size according to 

 age, and the group has a picturesquely rounded appearance. 

 In the course of time the younger trees reach maturity, and 

 in their turn become centres of new groups. The result is 

 an irregular, compound group, with taller trees here and 

 there, surrounded by smaller ones, and apparently scattered 

 without order, but in reality placed according to a very 

 natural law. Primarily these groups consist of only one 

 species ; in that illustrated in Fig. 44, of scarlet oak ; having 

 their origin in the one mother tree, by-and-by seeds of 

 flowering shrubs lodge among the fallen leaves, and in their. 



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