CHAPTER V 



FORMAL AND LANDSCAPE PLANTING 



A CERTAIN sense of responsibility attaches to those who 

 plant timber, quite out of proportion to that incurred in 

 the pursuit of the minor and more transitory forms of 

 garden arrangement and design. The builder oak, the 

 vine-prop elm and sailing pine, which to-day are so 

 small that we can carry them unaided, will develop into 

 mighty trees, silent witnesses of the times and doings of 

 generations yet unborn. We are planting for posterity, 

 and shall be held accountable for the good or evil that 

 we do. Tree planting calls forth certain motives of 

 unselfishness, for it will be given to others than our- 

 selves to see the full beauty which only maturity can 

 show. All honour, then, to those old designers, to 

 whose thought and care we owe the stately avenues, 

 the pride and glory of many an English home. A 

 beautiful tree, Nature's gift of shade and shelter to man 

 and beast, is the most precious picture in a fair land- 

 scape, and we are doing good work when with care and 

 foresight we increase, even in ever so humble a way, the 

 timber supplies of our country. 



Avenues are perhaps the most important example of 

 formal planting, but as they concern park and woodland 

 effects rather than those pertaining to the garden, their 

 discussion is somewhat outside the scope of this book. 

 Of recent years, however, a practice has arisen among 

 designers of making an approach of this kind to quite 

 unpretentious dwellings. Even in suburban grounds we 



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