XXll 



lively unimportant, and not always necessary) is 

 once performed with diligence, the planter is re- 

 leased from the task of studying any one of the 

 more useful branches of the preservative system. 



The third and last circumstance, which I shall 

 notice, is the obtaining a proper stock of subjects;* 

 and that, I fear, is not deemed more difficult, or 

 more important than the proper selection of them. 

 Without a stock of trees of all sorts, commensu- 

 rate to the planter's wants, no one can reasonably 

 expect to create at pleasure a succession of real 

 landscapes ; because, for that purpose, trees in 

 every variety of form, such as exist at this place, 

 the high and the low, the massive and the light, 

 the spreading and the spiral, should be at the 

 absolute command of the designer. Gentlemen 

 peruse my book, where they find a certain theory 

 held forth. They perhaps visit the place, where 

 they are surprised to see their idea of the theory 



* I know no one in this neighbourhood who has so large a stock of 

 beautiful subjects as Lord Morton, in the park at Dalmahoy. They are 

 all finely prepared hy nature, in consequence of the thinning system 

 adopted by his lordship's predecessor. The late lord used twice a week 

 to hunt a pack of small beagles over his plantations, from the time 

 they were six feet high ; and his rule for thinning, as he told me, was, 

 " to give himself full room always to ride through them." This was at 

 least a very sporting, if it was not a scientific, way of preparing his 

 materials. 



