ORNAMENTAL PLANTING. 227 



the garden should be a whit less beautiful, but the pro- 

 prietor of a demesne is not expected to spend all his time 

 there. The pursuit of country sports, if nothing else, will 

 take him into the outlying parts of his estate, and as he 

 traverses the dewy meads amid fogs and falling leaves 

 the intervals of sport may be enchantingly filled up by the 

 contemplation of a varied, vigorous, and well-composed 

 landscape. Whatever therefore is left undone, at least 

 the park and the outlines of woods and plantations should 

 be varied and adorned by all the forms and colours that 

 can be drawn from the rich repertory of the vegetable 

 kingdom. 



At this season, as at others, there requires a due 

 admixture of the deciduous and the evergreen to attain 

 all that is desirable. The airiness, the grace, the glow of 

 the former is rendered far more beautiful when associated 

 with the more solid-looking and durable forms of the 

 latter. As the deciduous forms are stripped bare, and 

 their leaves scattered by the autumnal whirlwind, it is 

 pleasant to contemplate the permanency and repose of 

 the evergreens, fitly represented by the Pine and Yew. 



No. IV. WINTER. 



[From " The Gardeners' Chronicle? October %th 1864,^. 963.] 



IT may probably startle some of my readers when I 

 essay to speak of the " Beauties of Winter." But the real 

 lover of nature who possesses the mens sana in corpore sano 

 will find in the changes of the seasons pleasure rather 

 than discomfort. To an individual thus soundly consti- 

 tuted the balmy breezes of spring, the noontide heat of 

 summer, the whirlwind of autumn, and the snows of 

 winter, with their varying preliminaries, accompaniments, 

 and sequences, are only so many fresh sources of know- 

 ledge, gratification, and delight. To draw on one's own 

 experience, I remember riding over a bleak plain one 

 December day many years ago, in face of a biting north- 



