LANDSCAPE FORESTRY 215 



clumps is the character of the trees which compose them. 

 When formed entirely of heavy-foliaged trees, such as beech, 

 Scots fir, etc., it is impossible to give them that lightness and 

 open character at the margins which they ought to possess. 

 Although a certain proportion of such trees should be present 

 in every group, in order to afford a fair amount of contrast 

 and increase the effect where large tree masses are required, 

 their heaviness should always be relieved by a few light- 

 foliaged trees, such as ash, oak, etc. The absence of such 

 trees, together with the formal outlines of the clumps formed 

 by Brown in the eighteenth century, have a great deal to do 

 with the disfigurement of many parks throughout the country 

 at the present day. To see huge, solid, circular masses of 

 beech standing at regular distances on an expanse of bare 

 turf is not a picturesque scene, by any means, although it is 

 one which is far too familiar, and is occasionally copied with 

 painful fidelity even now. 



The treatment of wooded back-grounds in mountainous 

 districts is usually determined as much by opportunity as 

 choice. Hills which rise above the normal tree-line, i.e. to a 

 height of 2000 feet or upwards, can rarely be wooded to their 

 tops, and it is only those woods which lie on their slopes that 

 have much effect on the back-ground of the landscape. At 

 a distance of two or three miles, woods of average size rarely 

 appear more than patches of colour black, green, or brown, 

 according to their being formed of conifers or hardwoods, or 

 according to the season of the year. When on the sky-line, 

 or projecting from a shoulder of the hill, they may be more 

 conspicuous, but, as a general rule, it is rarely possible to 

 judge the height or size of any individual trees on the face 

 of the hill at that distance, and their effect is little, if at all 

 greater than that produced by gorse, broom, or even bracken 

 or heather. Where plantations can be formed for profit as 

 well as effect, the two objects might, therefore, well be com- 

 bined, but, where the altitude is too great, or the soil too 

 poor for a profitable growth of timber, it is well worth con- 

 sidering whether these humbler forms of plant-life might not 

 serve the same purpose at a trifling cost as expensive planta- 

 tions which will never produce anything useful. Cheap forms of 

 tree-growth, such as birch, juniper, mountain pine, etc., are 



