114 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 



injures them. But a hedge may also be misplaced 

 elsewhere. It should not cut off our own view 

 toward a pleasant scene. It should often break up 

 a view into pictures. 



Windbreaks must be endured as a necessity, 

 sometimes, along lines where we do not wish to have 

 them. But neither windbreak, nor hedge, nor tree 

 are out of place because they do not let you see 

 everywhere without interruption and at once. A 

 true landscape home is one where you get glimpses 

 and pictures of hill, or valley, or town from different 

 points ; not the whole at once, and always the same. 

 I have seen some wicked cutting of trees and destruc- 

 tion of hedges because the new possessor of a home 

 was ambitious to see "far off." He did not wait long 

 enough to see that what he cut did no harm what- 

 ever, but on the contrary was an artistic supplement 

 to nature. The resident does not have the same 

 needs as the visitor the latter desires to see the 

 whole landscape at one sweep, the resident enjoys 

 it better by glimpses and pictures. Study your 

 place ; study all its possibilities before you take either 

 spade to plant, or saw to trim, or ax to cut. Either 

 tool in the hands of a horticulturist fool will create 

 more folly in an hour than you can undo in half a 

 century. Go around the tree; walk up and down 

 the hedge; study it in all its relations and all its 

 possible relations ; then wait a few months and study 

 it once more at another season. You may be con- 

 verted to see that it is above all things not to be cut. 

 But if after that you do cut, you will do it wisely and 

 not for after-repentance. 



The spirit of cutting something is only an 



