458 ON COLOUR IN TREE SCENERY. 



the new have become blended in one harmonious whole, 

 leaving no strong lines of demarcation between the work 

 of nature and the work of art, but the landscapes are 

 generally cold and monotonous wanting in variety and 

 colour. 



If we proceed to analyse a beautiful English landscape 

 we shall find it composed of diversity of surface, light and 

 shade, wood, water, rock, and many minor accessories, 

 which may or may not be present either singly or in 

 combination. These I mention, not to dwell upon, but to 

 dismiss as the recognised features of the landscape. My 

 business at present is with tree scenery, and principally 

 with one feature of it colour. Our earth tints are pro- 

 minently neutral, often sombre, and to correct this should, 

 in my judgment, be a leading idea with the true artist in 

 landscape gardening. A piece of country however beauti- 

 ful by nature, a garden however perfectly planned, yields 

 more or less pleasure according to the skill and taste 

 exercised in the planting, just as the proportions and 

 beauty of the human form are improved or otherwise by 

 the style of dress trees, shrubs, and flowers constituting 

 in fact the exterior dress of the garden and the landscape. 

 Now, it must be patent to those even who are but slightly 

 acquainted with this subject, that the labour of our plant 

 collectors abroad and plant cultivators at home have 

 placed within our reach many trees with coloured leaves 

 purple, yellow, and white of various shades and I hold 

 that these colours should be so blended with the prevailing 

 green as to remove the monotony which at present obtains. 

 That the effect of colour in the landscape would be gene- 

 rally appreciated was once brought home to me in a 

 peculiar manner. I was riding in company with some 

 friends through the park at Chatsworth in Derbyshire. 

 Suddenly we sighted a tree with reddish-brown leaves 

 rising from the green sward and surrounded at some 

 little distance with the usual green trees. Remote as it 

 was, we could not at the moment make it out, but all 



