46 SYLVAN WINTER. 



more beautiful if they fell off more in semicircular 

 laminae. They would correspond and unite 

 better with the semicircular form of the bole.' 

 Grilpin further says : ' Its lower branches, 

 shooting horizontally, soon take a direction to 

 the ground ; and the spray seems more sedulous 

 than that of any tree we have by twisting about 

 in various forms to fill up every little vacuity 

 with shade.' This refers to its summer procli- 

 vity. We do not agree with the author of 

 ' Forest Scenery ' in our opinion of the result 

 as shown in Winter, for he says : ' At the 

 same time it must be owned the twisting of its 

 branches is a disadvantage to this tree, as we 

 have observed it is to the Beech, when it is 

 stripped of its leaves and reduced to a skeleton. 

 It has not,' he continues, { the natural appear- 

 ance which the spray of the Oak and that of 

 many other trees discovers in Winter ; though I 

 have heard that in America, where it grows 

 naturally, it grows more freely and does not 

 exhibite that twisting in its branches.' It is 

 strange that Gilpin should here object to that 

 twisting of the branches of the Plane that in other 



