TOPI ART AN FOLLIES. 315 



Ignoble labour, too, to the men who have to carry it out. The 



work of disfiguring was bad at all times, now deplorable when the 



flowering trees and shrubs from China and Japan 



Waste of labour, are coming to us. This shaving of trees is a pitiful 



and degrading thing. Good taste is a more likely 



comrade of humility, and goes with a childlike reverence for the work 



of the Creator, as shown to us in the clouds, the mountains, the 



waves, the forests, the flowers, and in the flight of birds. 



Much topiary work is inherited from the architect's practice of 

 clipping trees to conform to the lines of building. Many places are 

 spoilt for the artist by the hard lines of clipped Yew, and not a 

 naturally-grown Yew to be seen. It is easy to get good dividing 

 lines without disfiguring trees ; lines that call for clipping mean the 

 destruction of all form. The labour and time spent in deforming 

 trees are a waste to make the earth hideous. 



Topiarian effects appeal only to those blind to the grace and 



movement of the free, natural form. To artists of all lands we may, 



if need be, appeal. France, in its home landscapes, 



Effect on the has for ages been disgraced by the Topiarian 



artist. practice, and here is what one of her gifted 



writers, Theophile Gautier, says : 



Les arbres du pare de Versailles portent des boucles et des frisures comme les 

 courtisans ; les poemes sont traces au cordeau comme les allees. Partout la 

 regularite froide est substitute au charmant desordre de la vie ; et qui produit 

 une impression a peu pres pareille a celle que vous donnent les jardins de Le 

 Notre ou de la Quintinie ; partout du marbre, du bronze, des Neptunes, des 

 tritons, des nymphes, des rocailles, des bassins, des grottes, des colonnades, des 

 ifs en quenouille, des buis en pot-au-feu. 



In much of Northern Europe the evergreen trees that grace our 

 land in winter are not to be seen save in a tub in a hall or glass- 

 house. Holly, Ivy, true Laurel are killed before 

 Origin of the the winter frost. The true Laurel of the Greeks 

 practice. is, in our southern counties and near our coast, 

 as happy in the open air as by a stream in Greece. 

 To supply the need in the frozen North a large business with ever- 

 greens in tubs has arisen in Holland and Belgium. The trees are 

 grown in tubs ; miles of them may be seen in nurseries. 



A great danger in our isles arises from the constant practice 



of planting the Yew in gardens and by ap- 



The deadly Yew. proaches, and it is sad to read this note in a 



daily paper : 



More than fifty sheep out of a large flock pastured in West Lothian died from 

 th,e effects of eating leaves of Yew trees. 



The tree is deadly for stock in all states, and if a record could be 

 made of its destructiveness it would amaze. The deaths of many 



