126 Notes a7id Recollections of a Tour. 



mounds are planted the trees which form the Arboretum : an 

 old belt of trees extends around the whole garden. 



To us, these mounds appeared in bad taste ; and, though 

 we are aware it is rather presumptuous to advance such an 

 opinion against so eminent a writer and landscape gardener, 

 we are quite confident he has committed an error. The 

 "undulating mounds," as he has termed them, are not 

 sufiiciently large to look like natural formations ; they seem 

 rather like heaps of earth thrown up, without a purpose, or 

 fixed object. As a screen, without the trees, they fail to ac- 

 complish the end in view ; and with the trees, we see not 

 why a rather dense plantation of evergreens would not have, 

 in a few years, quite as effectually answered the purpose. 

 These mounds are just high enough to keep the earth contin- 

 ually dry, and the trees had evidently suffered on this ac- 

 coimt ; the turf was also less verdant than on the level spaces 

 between the walks and the mounds. In a space so narrow, 

 it would be almost impossible to create an artificial surface, 

 such as has been attempted ; but in gardens of many acres, 

 raised mounds may be introduced, and in such a manner as 

 to have every appearance of a natural surface. 



The trees have only been planted four years, and were, of 

 course, not yet large ; some of the specimens have grown 

 well and make a fine appearance, while others had almost 

 stood still. Many of the Pinuses were yet very small. The 

 whole surface is laid down to grass, and around each tree is 

 a dug circle of from two to five feet in diameter, which is 

 to be kept so till the trees get well established. The grass 

 was short and well cut, and the v/alks were hard and in good 

 order. Five years more will make a great difference in the 

 Arboretum ; at that period many of the trees will be twenty- 

 five feet high. 



Besides the two pavilions we have noticed, there is an ar- 

 bor formed of a single tree of the Weeping ash, the branches 

 extending on all sides to the ground, and covering a circle 

 nearly a hundred feet in circumference. A lodge, in the Tu- 

 dor style, is erected at the east entrance. 



As a feature worthy of imitation, we may notice the plant- 

 ing of the trees ; these are all raised above the ground so as 

 to show the base of the stem. No error is so great as that of 



