ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 47 



ment of trees on their margins, or adjacent to them, made the 

 most interesting and pleasing portions of the residence. 



In Geometric Gardening, trees disposed in formal lines, ex- 

 hibit as strongly art or design in the contriver, as regular 

 architectural edifices, while in a more elevated and enlight- 

 ened taste, we are able to dispose them in our pleasure-grounds 

 and parks, around our houses, in all the variety of groups, 

 masses, thicket, and single trees, in such a manner as to rival 

 the most beautiful scenery of general nature, and produce 

 around us a portion of landscape, whic^i, while it comprises 

 all the comforts and elegancies of life, shall combine with 

 these, those beauties of expression that give rise to emotions in 

 the mind of the most agreeable character. 



If it were necessary to present any other inducement to the 

 country gentleman to form plantations of trees, than the great 

 beauty and value which they add to his estate, we might find 

 it in the pleasure which we all derive from their cultivation. 

 Unlike the pleasure arising from the gratification of our taste 

 in architecture, or any of the arts whose productions are 

 offered to us perfect and complete, the satisfaction arising 

 from planting and rearing trees is never weakened. " We 

 look," says a writer, "upon our trees as our offspring; and 

 nothing of inanimate nature can be more gratifying than to 

 see them grow and prosper under our care and attention, — 

 nothing more interesting than to examine their progress, and 

 mark their several peculiarities. In their progress from plants 

 to trees, they every year unfold new and characteristic marks 

 of their ultimate beauty, which not only compensate for past 

 cares and troubles, but like the returns of gratitude, raise a 

 most deliofhful train of sensations in the mmd : so innocent 

 and rational, that they may justly rank with the most exqui- 

 site of human enjoyments." 



