Improving the Aspect of the Country. 251 



sterile knolls and eminences, and leave the intervening spaces 

 and hollows open for tillage or pasture. All this should be 

 done with reference also to the opening of agreeable pros- 

 pects, and the concealment of whatever might be disagreea- 

 ble to the eye. 



Third; a proper admixture of evergreens and deciduous 

 trees, and of foreign and indigenous species, not only on 

 our roadsides and in our gardens, but likewise in our woods 

 and groves, both to add variety to our scenery and to natu- 

 ralize certain valuable exotics. 



Fourth ; a chaste style of embellishment of the enclosures 

 about our dwelling-houses, including the construction of the 

 fences, the planting of trees, flowers and shrubbery, and the 

 general style of laying out the grounds near the house. 



As the design of this essay is only to make some general 

 remarks, these points will not be taken up in their order, and 

 only one or two of them will be discussed. It is evident that 

 the proper management of wood is one of the most important 

 objects in the art of improving the landscape. One should ' 

 endeavor to obtain every advantage that could be afforded by 

 forest, grove, clumps, single trees, or shrubbery ; and great 

 improvements might be made in this respect, to the manifest 

 advantage of the proprietor, in a utilitarian sense. A great 

 portion of our land is necessarily left open for pasturage. For 

 this purpose our barren rocky hills, and smaller knolls and 

 eminences, are of very little value ; but they were formerly 

 covered with wood, which might, without great expense, be 

 restored. For pasturage, the lower part of the slopes is the 

 most useful and profitable, and the tops of the hills should be 

 again covered with trees. In those situations, trees not only 

 beautify the prospect in divers ways, besides covering their 

 baldness, but they likewise improve the climate in their im- 

 mediate neighborhood. Nothing serves more effectually to 

 check the progress of high winds, than a succession of hills 

 covered with trees. A little hamlet, under the protection of 

 a hilly forest, extending all along its northwestern boundary, 

 is, compared with one that has no such protection, as good as 

 one a whole degree further south. Nature and accident have 



