special Features 217 



made on purpose to exhibit them; I merely wish to recom- 

 mend the introduction, where practicable, in some remoter 

 and wilder part of the pleasure grounds or woods, and par- 

 ticularly where there are natural sloping banks of varied 

 aspect with an ordinarily sandy or rocky substratum, of a 

 careful selection of the most peculiar or most ornamental 

 kinds. It would be my way to distribute these about very 

 irregularly, in broken groups or as single specimens, according 

 to the conformation of the ground, the character or value of 

 theplants, and their fitness for entering into combination with 

 others or for standing alone. In short, the object of a pine- 

 tum should be to produce a new and unique but always pic- 

 turesque scene or succession of scenes in a place, with the 

 occasional exhibition of a very perfect specimen, and not, as is 

 usually the case, a merely monotonous succession of specimens. 



A remarkably eligible site for such a pinetum would be a 

 small winding valley in an old wood towards, the outside of 

 a pleasure garden. By cutting away the wood in the bottom 

 of this valley, and making bold indentations into it along the 

 slopes at its sides, a walk might be conducted through the 

 hollow, and the banks could receive the choice conifers, while 

 the groups of these latter would be broken here and there by 

 jutting portions of the wood, and the whole would be backed 

 and thrown into good relief by the deciduous trees composing 

 the main mass. 



The drawing, fig. 59, will afford some slight idea of the 

 grouping of such evergreen trees by the sides of such a walk 

 as I have mentioned, the wood itself being nearly altogether 

 omitted from the sketch. The lines of the walk are proba- 

 bly smoother and more regular than they would be likely to 

 be in such a situation. But they might, for variety, ascend 

 the banks in certain parts, and would thus show the conifers 

 more advantageously. The scale is 66 feet to an inch. 



