22 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



by an invisible or sunken fence just now described, for the culti 

 vation of ornamental trees and shrubs, is kept so closely and 

 evenly shorn, that to walk upon it seems more like treading upon 

 velvet than upon grass. Nothing of the kind can be more beau 

 tiful ; and I never before knew the force of that striking expres 

 sion of the prince of poets, Milton, of &quot;walking on the smooth 

 shaven lawn ; &quot; for it seems to be cut with a razor rather than 

 with a scythe ; and after a gentle shower it really appears as if 

 the field had had its face washed, and its hair combed with a 

 fine-tooth comb. It is brought to this perfection by being kept 

 often mown ; and I have stood by with perfect admiration to see 

 a swarth mowed evenly and perfectly, where the grass to be cut 

 was scarcely more than an inch high. 



These parks which I have described abound, as observed, with 

 trees of extraordinary age and size. They are not like the trees 

 of our original forests, growing up to a great height, and, on 

 account of the crowded state of the neighborhood, throwing out 

 few lateral branches ; but what they want in height, they gain 

 in breadth ; and, if I may be excused for a hard word, in um- 

 brageousness. I measured one in Lord Bagot s celebrated park 

 in Staffordshire, and going round the outside of the branches, 

 keeping within the droppings, the circuit was a hundred yards. 

 The circumference of some of the celebrated oaks in the park of 

 the Duke of Portland, which we measured together, when he did 

 me the kindness to accompany me through his grounds, seem 

 worthy of record. The Little Porter Oak measured 27 feet in 

 circumference ; the Great Porter Oak is 29 feet in circumference; 

 the Seven Sisters, 33 feet in circumference. The Great Porter 

 Oak was of a very large diameter, 50 feet above the ground : 

 and the opening in the trunk of the Green Dale Oak was at one 

 time large enough to admit the passage of a small carriage 

 through it ; by advancing years the space has become somewhat 

 contracted. These indeed are noble trees, though it must be 

 confessed that they were thrown quite into the shade by the 

 magnificent Kentucky Buttonwood or Sycamore, of whose 

 trunk I saw a complete section exhibited at Derby, measuring 

 25 feet in diameter and 75 feet in circumference. This was 

 brought from the United States, and indeed might well be 

 denominated the mammoth of the forest. 



In these ancient parks, oaksjind beeches are the predominant 

 trees, with occasional chestnuts and ashes. In very many cases 



