410 Planting; Tires and Shrubs 



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M. Sckell, that this last-mentioned modification is that which 

 this eminent landscape-gardener has recommended, and that 

 much of what is objectionable in other quarters is chargeable 

 on imitators of his style, who, as is so generally the case, 

 have pushed the system of their master farther than he in- 

 tended. 



It is to these imitators I would beg to suggest, that, in taking 

 nature, as they profess, for their pattern, they have deviated, 

 in two respects, very widely from this confessedly only safe 

 guide to all that is lovely in scenery. 



Their first error consists in planting their masses (com- 

 posed of either trees or shrubs of one species) with individuals 

 of the same age and height, and too closely together, which can 

 only lead to lumpish forms, devoid of all variety of outline. 

 A thick natural wood of young fir trees, for example, all of 

 the same height, may, when old, be grand and sublime, but 

 can at no age be considered beautiful ; while, as I have seen 

 repeated instances in Germany, a young wood of fir trees, of 

 one species (as the spruce fir), planted by nature to succeed 

 an old one, — where you see a group composed of one tree 

 20 ft. high and others of various heights down to 1 ft., and 

 other groups varying in every possible combination of height 

 and the number of individuals composing them, and the whole 

 partially separated by irregular glades of grass and yet united 

 into a whole by scattered and single trees, — may be often at 

 once extremely beautiful and picturesque. 



But, however interesting such a wood of one species may be, 

 it must, I think, be considered inferior to a similar natural 

 wood of several species, such as the New Forest in Hamp- 

 shire for example, with which no woods that I have seen in 

 Germany can, in my opinion, at all compare ; and simply for 

 this reason, that, in addition to the above-mentioned variety, 

 proceeding from grouping, age, size, &c, you have also that 

 arising from variety of species : and this is the second point in 

 which the new system, as generally practised, seems to fail. 

 In the New Forest we find in one quarter one kind of tree 

 predominate, in another quarter another ; in one part chiefly 

 oaks, in another hollies, and so on : but yet the predominat- 

 ing species is scarcely ever exclusive, but always so grouped 

 and contrasted or relieved with other species, both of trees 

 and shrubs, as wholly to avoid that formal sameness which is 

 the general result of modern planting in masses * of but one 

 species. 



Much of what is said above is equally applicable to the 

 modern fashion of planting the flower clumps of the garden 

 and pleasure-ground with but one kind of flower. The effect, 



