tsoith regard to Practical Gardeners. 475 



and too grotesque for others. Aquatics should only appear 

 in the near neighbourhood of water, and never on hills, 

 unless it be to point out the source of a spring. The outline 

 and pictorial character of ti'ees must also be studied. Among 

 them may be found the softly beautiful, the picturesque, and 

 the majestic. 



Dwarf trees and shrubs are of great importance in land- 

 scape ; they are the natural associates of trees, they connect 

 their lower branches with the ground, break the continuity of 

 the browsing line in open groves, and serve as a scale of com- 

 parison when placed among taller growths. Planted in groups, 

 or singly on a lawn, they break its uniformity, and produce 

 an intricacy always pleasing to the eye. The holly, sweet- 

 briar, and hawthorn, in woods and open lawns, and the fiirze^ 

 juniper, broom, and dog-rose, on distant banks, are the most 

 convenient shrubs for park scenery. The broken margin of 

 lakes or rivers, in picturesque views, should have their fringe 

 of aquatic herbs. 



The distinguishing character of trees should be well studied. 

 Desirable effects may be produced by proper associations. 

 Their forms and general colours may express light and airy, 

 or deep and gloomy, effects. Painters have their favourite 

 trees ; they disHke thickly leaved lumpish-headed ones, but 

 admire such as are rugged and contorted by age or accident, 

 and, if perfect, that have a gracefully waved trunk and lightly 

 tufted foliage, showing all the ramifications of the twigs and 

 branches. 



There is much fastidiousness evinced by artists, and among 

 people of taste, respecting the forms of trees : some tribes are 

 condemned in toto ; others are only admissible in certain 

 situations. That there are agreeable and disagreeable objects 

 in nature, and in the vegetable kingdom in particular, is per- 

 fectly true; but why the aversion of painters to portray 

 regular forms should be transferred by amateurs to a dislike 

 of regular forms and all regular-growing trees, is rather un- 

 accountable. The pine tribe of trees is seldom chosen by 

 landscape-painters, except for alpine scenery. When growing 

 closely together, pines, like all other trees, grow dispropor- 

 tionally tall, and, being denuded of lower branches, are cer- 

 tainly far from being handsome objects; but, when allowed 

 room to present their natural forms, they become objects of 

 the most graceful elegance : their aspiring height, their hori- 

 zontal or drooping boughs, which seem to float unsupported 

 in the air, or rising again after sweeping the ground, are, to 

 an eye unsophisticated by artijicial taste, most interesting. 

 The painter dislikes them, because he fears that his picture 



