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parks, whctlicr okl or new, are now laid out. Where woods 

 have stood for centuries, taste and skill have done much to 

 display, and even improve their effects ; and incredible labour 

 and expense have been dedicated to the planting of new re- 

 sidences, where another age only can see the ideas of the 

 owners realized. Nothing seems wanting to this charming 

 art, but some successful method of giving a Speedy Effect to 

 Wood^ and of bringing the enjoyment of it, in some sort, 

 within the lifetime of the planter., that is, giving it at once 

 a magnitude sufficient for picturesque purposes. 



Wood must ever be the grand and effective material of 

 real landscape. Over the other materials of picturesque 

 improvement the artist has comparatively little control. — 

 With earth he cannot do much : rocks are by far too ponde- 

 rous for his management ; and water can be commanded, 

 only in certain situations and circumstances. But trees or 

 bushes can be raised any where ; and there is no situation 

 so utterly hopeless, as not to be capable of considerable beauty, 

 from wood planted abundantly and judiciously. In a coun- 

 try, then, like Britain, where every luxury is purchased at 

 so high a price, it may appear surprising, that some certain 

 method of obtaining the Immediate Command of Wood, 

 should still be a desideratum in its ornamental Gardening. 



Few men begin to plant in earl}^ life, and what is long 

 deferred, many, for that reason, omit to do altogether. He, 

 who inherits or acquires a land-estate, is usually desirous to 

 shelter and embellish it. The soldier or the merchant, the 

 statesman or the lawyer, after a life spent in honourable 

 exertionj generally retires to rural scenes, as capable of 

 furnishing the most unmixed enjoyment to the decline of 

 life. To view nature in the rich garb, with which taste and 

 ingenuity now invest her, is always pleasing : but, as it is 

 far more delightful to create than to contemplate, so it often 

 happens that finished places, where scarcely any thing more 

 is to be done, are not always sought after, by the active and 



