NATURE NEAR LONDON SE 



The point, however, is that the foreigners oust 

 the English altogether. Let the cedar and the 

 laurel, and the whole host of invading evergreens, be 

 put aside by themselves, in a separate and detached 

 shrubbery, maintained for the purpose of exhibiting 

 strange growths. Let them not crowd the lovely 

 English trees out of the place. Planes are much 

 planted now, with ill effect ; the blotches where 

 the bark peels, the leaves which lie on the sward 

 like brown leather, the branches wide apart and 

 giving no shelter to birds in short, the whole 

 ensemble of the plane is unfit for our country. 



It was selected for London plantations, as the 

 Thames Embankment, because its peeling bark 

 was believed to protect it against the deposit of 

 sooty particles, and because it grows quickly. For 

 use in London itself it may be preferable : for 

 semi-country seats, as the modern houses sur- 

 rounded with their own grounds assume to be, it 

 is unsightly. It has no association. No one has 

 seen a plane in a hedgerow, or a wood, or a copse. 

 There are no fragments of English history clinging 

 to it as there are to the oak. 



If trees of the plane class be desirable, sycamores 

 may be planted, as they have in a measure become 

 acclimatised. If trees that grow fast are required, 

 there are limes and horse-chestnuts ; the lime will 

 run a race with any tree. The lime, too, has a 



