492 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



rapid. Its estuaries and coast views are varied, from the form 

 and rockiness of its shores ; and in variety, he thinks the 

 English lake scenery equal to that of any country. 



One of the peculiar features of English landscape arises 

 from the intermixture of wood and cultivation ; while in 

 France, Spain, and Italy, cultivation and wood have their 

 separate limits. Trees grow in detached woods; and cnlti- 

 vation occupies vast, unbounded common fields. I have 

 observed a similar difference between the landscape of New 

 England and that of the Southern States. In England, our 

 author remarks, the custom of dividing property by hedges, 

 and of planting hedge-rows, so universally prevails that 

 almost wherever you have cultivation, there also you have 

 wood. On a near view, the marks of the spade and the 

 plough, the hedge and the ditch, together with all the for- 

 malities of hedge-row trees and square divisions of property, 

 are displeasing : but where all these regular forms are softened 

 by distance ; where hedge-row trees begin to unite, and 

 lengthen into streaks along the horizon ; where farm-houses 

 and ordinary buildings lose all their vulgarity of shape, and 

 the whole mass is blended together, it adds great beauty to 

 the landscape. Thus, English landscape furnishes a species 

 of " rich distance," which is rarely to be found in any other 

 country. Another of its peculiar features arises from the 

 great quantity of the English oak with which it abounds ; 

 nor does any tree answer all the purposes of scenery so well. 

 The oak is the noblest ornament of a foreground, spreading 

 from side to side its tortuous branches and foliage of fine tint 

 in autumn, and verdure in summer. In a distance, also, it 

 appears with equal advantage, forming the most beautiful 

 clumps, varied more in shape and perhaps more in color than 

 the clumps of any other tree. The pine of Italy has its 

 beauty, hanging over the broken pediment of some ruined 

 temple. The elm, the ash, and the beech have all their 

 respective beauties ; but no tree of the forest is adapted to 

 all the purposes of landscape like the English oak. 



The author speaks also of the embellished garden and the 

 park scene, as among the peculiar features of English land- 



