THOUGHTS ON TREES AND FLOWERS. 



151 



THOUGHTS ON TREES AND FLOWERS. 



SUGGESTED, OE REVIVED, BY A LETTER FROM A CLERGYMAN, 



We give place to the letter from our obliging 

 friend, the Rev. J. O. Choules, with particular 

 pleasure, and the more eo, as it seems to warrant 

 the hope that we may regard it, to speak in lan- 

 guage that every farmer will understand, as an 

 entering ■wedge — or, shall we say, as a nest-egg! 

 the use and value whereof needs no explana. 

 tion for one who felicitates himself, as will be 

 seen, that he "has been very successful this 

 year, in raising a large stock of poultry," and al- 

 most promises to say his say about chickens, 

 for the Farmers' Library. 



But we cannot suppress the wish tliat our 

 friend had dwelt more and longer, as we are 

 sure he might have done with force and ele- 

 gance, on the science and the virtue of the love 

 of Trees and Flowers, and of Latj^scape Gar- 

 dening, as eminently worthy of more general 

 and higher cultivation in our country, and yet 

 most greviou.slj' and shamefully neglected. Ful- 

 ly impressed, as we are, with the fine effect 

 which would ensue the spread of such a ta.ste, 

 as well on the moral sentiments as on the physi- 

 cal aspect of the country, we should rejoice to 

 have it inculcated, and in every form illusU'ated 

 through the pages of the Farmers' Library, by 

 one who could so well persuade others to act 

 upon the sentiments, which on that subject, he 

 evidently entertains himself with so much en- 

 thusiasm that he would be ever saying, with Sir 

 Walter Scott, to the gardener — "Take care that 

 ye be aye planting a tree !" 



In this interesting matter of encouraging and 

 enlightening the pubHc taste for Landscape 

 Gardening, Downing, as we have elsewhere 

 said, is doing for us, what was done with less 

 existing necessity for England, by Repton and 

 Price, andmore recently by LouDos; and now, 

 as we are advised by the letter of Mr. Choules, 

 we are to have another book on Trees, to cover 

 the ground, if any which may not have been oc- 

 cupied by the amiable and eminent artist who 

 distingui^^hes Newburgh by his residence, his 

 trees, his fruits and his flowers ; and above all, 

 by making that the centrifugal point for the dif- 

 fusion of so much elegant and useful knowledge. 



Undoubtedly it is in the power of the Clergy, 

 as has been well and opportunely suggested by 

 Mr. C. and especially of those resident in the 

 country, to do much in exemplification of the 

 science and the beauties of Arboriculture ■ and 

 (3071 



how better could they enforce the spirit of all 

 true religion ? For it would bo as impossible 

 for oil and vinegar to commingle, spontaneous- 

 ly, as that unmitigated selfishness and misan- 

 throphy should dwell in the same bosom with 

 the love of trees and of flowers. Of this Byron 

 seems to be aware, where thus he seeks, by 

 some redeeming touches, to relieve the desper- 

 ate character of the greatest Pirate 



" That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat." 



— Old Lambko. 



" Still o'er his mind the influGnce of the clime 

 Shed its Ionian eleeance, which show'd 



Its power unconsciously full many a time, — 

 A taste seen in the choice of his abode, 



A love of Music and of scenes sublime, 

 A pleasure in the gentle stream that flow'd 



Past him in crystal, and a joy mfl^iwcrs, 



Bedew'd hia spirit in his calmer hours." 



Nor is a partiality for such studies by any means 

 incompatible with the highest degi-ee of literary 

 and scientific attainments. On the contrary, as 

 truly stated by Mr. Downing, in his Historical 

 notices of Landscape Gardening, the glory and 

 merit of the revolution, from the stiff and formal 

 to the easy and natural stj'le of gardening, be- 

 long to two among the brightest luminaries of 

 English Literature, Addison and Pope. 



To Pope's powerful agency in achieving 

 the great modem reform upon the old angular 

 system practised before his day, in laying off 

 gardens, emphatic testimony is borne too by 

 Horace Walpole in his letters to Sir Horace 

 Mann. 



It has, indeed, been affirmed, and tlie observa- 

 tion is doubtless as just as it is natural, that there 

 is an intimate connexion between Landscape 

 Gardening, Landscape Painting, and Land.scape 

 Poetry : it being the province of the fu-st to cre- 

 ate, the second to paint, and the third to describe 

 the scene. It is urged tliat the subjects on which 

 they work, are the same, with this difference, 

 that the range of the Landscape Poet is wider 

 and more varied than those of the others ; and is 

 addressed to the eye and the car, while the otliers 

 are confined to the impressions made on the 

 mind through the eye. Whence it appears that 

 the Landscape Painter is much indebted to the 

 Landscape Gardener, for the vast variety of 

 pleasing and striking objects that are made to 

 harmonize with each other in scenery which the 

 gardener has brought into view, but which, if 



