402 General Results of a Gardening Tuur : — 



where natural beauty is an object ; for that gives immediately 

 the idea of art, and, besides, forms a point for the eye to 

 measure from, diminishing the apparent size of the place, and 

 destroying what painters call breadth of effect, or what a 

 gardener, if he could look with a painter's eye, would call 

 breadth of lawn. The last rule we shall give is, that groups 

 should be kept near the walks ; and that, when they extend 

 into the lawn, they should be in clusters ; so that a map of 

 the whole would show alternate clusters of groups, and broad 

 spaces of lawn. To these rules there are, of course, excep- 

 tions ; and it is not to be expected that any gardener can 

 apply them perfectly who does not understand the principle 

 from which they are drawn; but if they were even adhered to 

 in a general way, they would prevent the eye from being 

 offended to the extent it now is, in almost every lawn and 

 flower-garden. We recommend the perusal of the article on 

 the beauty of lines and forms given in a former Volume ; and, 

 to young gardeners, the continual sketching of scenery from 

 nature, and from good engravings. 



We can safely affirm, that we have seen very few groups 

 placed on lawn to our satisfaction, either in large or in small 

 places, since we left London. If our article above referred to 

 had been understood, this could not have happened. We con- 

 clude it has been read ; for the Gardener's Magazine appears 

 to be well known wherever we have called : but it is not 

 enough to present knowledge to a mind, unless that mind has 

 been prepared by previous culture to receive it. We have 

 given sketches at several places where errors have recently 

 been committed, to show the sort of grouping that ought to 

 have been adopted ; and we could wish that all young men 

 intended for nurserymen or jobbing gardeners could be made 

 to understand the importance of the subject. 



A second grand fault in almost all places, whether large or 

 small, is the manner in which single trees are planted. The 

 number of places which are thus disfigured has astonished 

 us. We have elsewhere observed [Treatise on Country Re- 

 sidences) that single trees and small groups are, in landscape- 

 gardening, what the last touches given to a picture are in 

 landscape-painting. By a singular perversity of purpose, 

 where a landscape-gardener has been employed to lay out a 

 place, and form the general outlines of the masses of plant- 

 ation, the putting in of the single trees is left to be done after- 

 wards, by degrees, by the gardener, forester, or bailiff, for the 

 time being. Every one thinks he can tell where a single tree 

 is wanted, or will look well : " at all events," say such per- 

 sons, " right or wrong, a single tree cannot do much harm." 



