THE MANSE GARDEN. 13 



but no other walls than a few naked posts supply. 

 Plantations of such breadth upon low and level 

 grounds have a good effect on the distant landscape ; 

 but where they appear on heights, verge the horizon, 

 and stand relieved against the sky, they have all 

 the wretchedness of a ragged garment ; and having 

 such aspect near a house, where they are designed 

 for warmth and seclusion, it were better not to have 

 them. In the first period of their growth, they 

 afford but the pleasures of hope ; then, for a season, 

 they give an air of snugness to the dwelling ; and 

 then, as the planter is growing old, they are getting 

 bare; and, looking through his poor strip, he sees 

 from hedge to hedge the withered grass partly broken 

 and partly waving in the winter winds. In point of 

 taste, such a plantation is downright ugliness, and in 

 point of utility its condemnation is, that it does not 

 answer the end. 



Plant hollies instead of firs, and every inconveni- 

 ence will disappear. You will have no pain or hesi- 

 tation as to thinning and pruning; the promotion 

 of your hollies becomes the main object, and every 

 thing that interferes will readily give way. Only 

 cut down as the hollies spread, and in the long run 

 there will be as. much timber as the ground can carry. 

 The timber may grow magnificent if you will; the 

 holly will thrive notwithstanding. Nothing that 

 grows will look so smiling and vigorous under the 

 shade of trees ; it may be seen luxuriant where it 

 has been chance-sown by the root of an old oak ; it 

 never knows what it is to die under any circumstances; 

 it is peeled by birdcatchers, to whose blackguard 

 calling it seems indispensable, still it lives; age seems 



