COUNTRY VILLAS, 221 



among the kinds of trees employed, and for the general taste of the place, as 

 far as trees are concerned. Another advantage of having the situation of 

 every particular tree and shruh marked on the plan, with a corresponding 

 list of their names, is, that no nurseryman or jobbing gardener, who may be 

 employed to execute the planting, can have any pretence for sending in more 

 trees, or trees and shrubs of other sorts, than are indicated in the plan ; 

 unless, indeed, as is often the case, the nurseryman or jobbing gardener pre- 

 tends to improve the plan of tlie landscape-gardener, and having, by dint of 

 perseverance and talking, got the ear of his employer, the latter is prevailed 

 on, for quiet's sake, to yield to the proposed alterations, and to admit trees 

 and shrubs in such quantities as, in some cases, entirely to destroy the effect 

 which the landscape-gardener intended to produce. It is well known that, 

 in all new plantations, especially in those made in the grounds of small 

 country residences, the plants are now generally put in so thick as almost to 

 touch each othei-, or at the rate of six or eight thousand plants per acre, even 

 of trees alone ; whereas, according to the mode of planting which we recom- 

 mend, the number per acre, when trees alone are employed, will scarcely ever 

 amount to a thousand ; and, when shrubs alone are planted, to not more than 

 between two and three thousand, according to the small or large size which 

 the kinds will attain when fully grown, or the rapidity of their growth when 

 young. Another advantage of this mode of wide planting is, that no thinning 

 will be required for several years afterwards : and every landscape-gardener 

 knows that the effect of the plantations, in nine tenths of newly-made places, 

 is most materially injured by the neglect which generally takes place in thin- 

 ning. When thinning is neglected after the branches of the trt es touch each 

 other, the plants are drawn up as if they were in a nursery. In a few years 

 the more tender kinds are choked ; and the coarser kinds, filling up the space 

 thus left, are, in their turn, drawn up ; so that, at the end of fifteen or twenty 

 years, the whole presents a mass of naked stems, with diminutive tops ; and, 

 if thinning is then had recourse to, the results are hideous, at first, in regard 

 to effect; and, after one or two seasons, from the wind and weather being 

 admitted where they never were before, they are destructive to the trees ; 

 which either gradually decay, and at last die standing, or are blown down 

 by the first violent storm of wind. 



321. — The planting of the kitchen-garden with fruit trees and shrubs may 

 be considered as having been treated of in preceding pages ; particularly in 

 p. 75, to which we now refer the reader. 



322. Execution. — All that we have said hitherto may be considered as only 

 committed to paper in the form of plans, and a report, for the consideration 

 of the proprietor and his family. When these are approved of, the next step 

 is to carry them into execution. This is sometimes done by contract, and 

 sometimes by the proprietor employing his own workmen, under the direction 

 of a competent manager ; but, most frequently, partly in one way and partly 

 in the other. The house, oflices, lodge, garden walls, and, in general, all 

 that belongs to architecture, may be done by contract ; provided a respectable 

 and responsible builder is engaged as the contractor, and not beaten down to 

 the lowest price by competition. The architect who designed the buildings 

 should, of course, have the general inspection of the work as it is going on ; and 

 there should be a clause in the agreement between the contractor and the pro- 

 prietor, that alterations or deviations from the plan may be made according to 



