60 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



round and round them ; no opening, no vacancy, no strag- 

 glers ; but in the true military character. Us sont face far- 

 tout !* 



The chief care, then, which is necessary in the formation 

 of groups, is, not to place them in any regular or artificial 

 manner, as one at each corner of a triangle, square, octagon, 

 or other many-sided figure, but so to dispose them, as that 

 the whole may exhibit the variety, connection, and intricacy 

 seen in nature. " The greatest beauty of a group of trees," 

 says Loudon, " as far as respects their stems, is in the varied 

 direction these take as they grow into trees ; but as that is, 

 for all practical purposes, beyond the influence of art, all we 

 can do, is to vary as much as possible the ground plan of 

 groups, or the relative positions which the stems have to each 

 other where they spring from the earth. This is consider- 

 able, even where a very few trees are used of which any 

 person may convince himself by placing a few dots on paper. 

 Thus two trees, (fig. 2), or a tree and shrub, which is the 

 smallest group, (a), may be placed in three diflferent positions 

 with reference to a spectator in a fixed point ; if he moves 

 round them, they will first vary in form separately, and next 

 unite in one or in two groups, according to the position of 

 the spectator. In like manner, three trees may be placed in 

 four different positions ; four trees may be placed in eight 

 difierent positions [h) ; five trees may be grouped in ten 

 dilferent ways, as to ground plan ; six may be placed in 



* Those who have perused, Price's " Essay on the Picturesque," can not 

 fail to be entertained with the vigour with which he advocates the picturesque, 

 and attacks the dumping method of laying out grounds, much practised in Eng- 

 land, on the first introduction of the modern style. Brwon, was the great prac- 

 titioner at that time, and his favourite and undeviating plan seems to have been 

 to cover the whole surface of the grounds with an unmeaning assemblage of 

 round, bunchy clumps. 



