116 



priety and advantage, a few trees may be taken out, 

 which should be done this spring, and the remaining 

 trees dressed up. The particular trees that should 

 be taken out here were pointed out as I went along, 

 say about twenty in all ; so that they need no far- 

 ther description. It is always to be understood it is 

 only the dwarfish and unthrifty, and such as never 

 will be proper trees, and are at present injuring their 

 neighbouring trees, that are to be taken out. The 

 strip along the dike side, on the public or common 

 approach to the mansion, together with the row of 

 trees outside, say on the south of said approach, forms 

 a fine avenue, and screens the common from the pri- 

 vate approach. I may here be permitted to observe, 

 that I am an advocate for keeping up entire, all old 

 avenues of large timber trees about a mansion or seat 

 of a proprietor ; and I am of opinion, that nothing 

 gives a place an air of antiquity more than they do, 

 and should never be cut down but at the direction 

 and desire of the proprietor. In this, however, I dif- 

 fer from almost the whole of my profession of modern 

 improvers, whose plans are to cut these up into de- 

 tached groups. The present Earl of sent a pro- 

 fessional gentleman from England to improve his 

 woods, &c. on his estate in Scotland, and he cut all 

 the fine old avenues of trees leading to the Palace of 



, into small irregular groups of about three and 



five trees, which, when the Earl came down and saw, 

 he would have given, as he himself expressed it, the 

 half of the whole property to have had these beauti- 

 ful avenues of trees up again. I could give a great 

 many more instances of this kind. No one that ever 

 saw the indescribably beautiful avenues of lofty trees 

 at and near the castle of Inverary, the seat of the 



