Esthetic Forestry 189 



^\'hile the well-meaning but poorly-informed tree-loving 

 public improperly resents the interference with Nature, 

 advocating the extreme let-alone pohcy, the park manager 

 may fall into the other extreme of trying to assist Nature 

 too much. The mistake which otherwise good park man- 

 agers are apt to make is that they transfer their conceptions 

 which fit the tree on the lawn to the tree in the forest. The 

 tree on the lawn, single or in groups, we admire for its sym- 

 metrical indi^'idual form, which is secured by preventing 

 interference on the part of neighbors. In the forest it is 

 not the individual, but the ensemble, that pleases. Thus 

 the asymmetry of the whole is to be considered rather than 

 the symmetrical development of the individual. Here the 

 trees should be rather crowded so as to assume the type of 

 the real forest-grown tree. Pruning to form would here be 

 out of place and the orderliness of the formal park a hope- 

 less mistake. 



Nevertheless, improvement and assistance to Nature is 

 by no means excluded, but here we must let Nature lead 

 and only follow her up to correct her esthetic errors; while 

 in the formal park the landscape gardener must be positive, 

 here his art must be subordinate, confined almost entirely 

 to negative measures. 



Each forest in its virgin condition exhibits a different 

 type according to its composition, and so each woodland 

 park may differ and yet fulfil its function; in other words, 

 no hard and fast rules as to its appearance can be laid down. 

 If a bit of hemlock forest has luckily become part of the 

 park, or a growth of pine or spruce, it would be poor taste 

 to disturb their "purity" by introducing admixtures or 

 undergrowth. In the very monotony of the dense conifer 

 forest, with its tall clean symmetrical shafts of even develop- 

 ment and its somber shade excluding all undergrowth hes 



