CLIPPING EVERGREEN AND OTHER TREES. 243 



I have no more scruple in using the scissors upon tree or shrub, where trim- 

 ness is desirable, than I have in mowing the turf of the lawn that once represented 

 a virgin world . . . and in the formal part of the garden my Yews should take the 

 shape of pyramids, or peacocks, or cocked hats, or ramping lions in Lincoln green, 

 or any other conceit I had a mind to, which vegetable sculpture can take. 



After reading this I thought of some of the true " vegetable 



sculpture " that I had seen ; Reed and Lily, models in stem and 



leaf; the Grey Willows of Britain as lovely 



" Vegetable against our British skies as Olives are in the 

 sculpture." south ; many-columned Oak groves set in seas of 

 Primroses, Cuckoo flowers, and Violets ; Silver 

 Birch woods of Northern Europe beyond all grace possible in stone ; 

 the eternal garland of beauty that one kind of Palm waves for 

 hundreds of miles throughout the land of Egypt a vein of summer 

 in a lifeless world ; the noble Pine woods- of California and Oregon, 

 like fleets of colossal masts on mountain waves these and many 

 other lovely forms in. garden and wood, and then wondered that 

 any one could be so blind to the beauty of the natural forms of 

 plants and trees as to write as this author does. 



From the days of the Greeks to our own time, the delight of all 

 great artists has been to get as near this divine beauty as what 

 they work in permits. But this deplorable vegetable sculptors delight 

 is in distorting beautiful forms ; and this in the one art in which 

 we have the happiness of possessing the living things themselves, 

 and not merely representations of them. The old people from whom 

 he takes his ideas were not so foolish, as when the Yew was used as a 

 hedge or was put at a garden gate it was necessary to clip it to keep 

 it in bounds. Apart from the ugliness of the cocked-hat tree, or other 

 pantomimic trees the want of life and change in a garden made up 

 of such trees should open the eyes of any one to its drawbacks, 

 as in it there is none of the joy of spring, or summer's crown of 

 flowers, or winter's rest. 



In old days, whether in a manor house or castle garden, the 



use of Yew hedges had some clear motive of shelter or division, 



or clothing against massive walls as at Berkeley, 



Abuse of Yew or at a cottage door as a living shelter. But 



hedges. when we use Yew hedges from the mere desire 



for them, and without much thought of the ground 



or other reasons, we may find ourselves in trouble. At a place 



where Roses were earnestly sought, the Rose borders were backed 



up close by Yew hedges ; the Yews were not very troublesome 



the first year or two, but, as they grew, they became merciless 



robbers. There are many ways of growing Roses, but it would be 



difficult to invent any worse way than this, which leaves the gardener 



