PREFA CE 



THIS book is for the country house, or any place 

 where there is woodland, or land to plant ; its object 

 is to get people, after thought of the needs of a true 

 garden, to think more of their woods from aesthetic 

 and other points of view. Its aim is to teach the best 

 of all lessons for garden-lovers too often absorbed in 

 the exotic, the curious, and the tender that our own 

 country's trees are the most beautiful we shall ever 

 have, and our native flowers as fair as any. I do 

 not mean any extension of the pleasure-ground, so 

 often a poor { sticky ' thing, little better than the stereo- 

 typed flower-garden, but the real woodland. Small 

 gardens are often the most beautiful and the best for 

 the happiness of their owners ; but we have to think of 

 the many who have greater opportunities, too seldom 

 embraced woodlands that are not brought into any 

 happy relation with the house and are often not 

 accessible from it. In the district in which I live 

 there are hundreds of acres of beautiful woods never 

 seen by any but the gamekeeper, woods sheeted with 

 Kingcups, Primroses, and Wood Hyacinths, more 

 beautiful in their effect than any garden. 



These woodland gardens rarely depend on the 



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