682 Notes on Gardens and Country Seats : — 



which have been self-sown, and which are thinly scattered 

 over any surface. Nothing can be more unnatural in its kind 

 than the straight stem of a tree rising abruptly out of a level 

 surface, without the slightest preparation or basement; it 

 looks as if the tree had been cut over from somewhere else, 

 and stuck into the ground. 



We had almost forgotten to mention that a pinetum is 

 now commencing, which, we hope, will be in the end extended 

 to an arboretum, with the trees planted at a sufficient distance 

 from each other to allow each to assume its proper size and 

 shape. There is, indeed, a want of foreign trees and shrubs 

 in the dressed grounds of Bear Wood. " The world's 

 applause" is one grand object with all those who build or 

 plant, and to attain this end, in forming the plantations of 

 a country residence, it is necessary to produce in them a 

 distinctive character from that of the natural woods, or arti- 

 ficial plantations, by which they are surrounded. Now this 

 can only be effected by disposing the trees in a manner 

 different from that which is common in the country where 

 the residence is situated ; or by the same kind of dispo- 

 sition, but with different characters of trees. Hence, in 

 the infancy of art, when there are no trees in a country but 

 what are indigenous to it; and when these are disposed in 

 a natural manner, being, in fact, the remains of open forest 

 scenery ; the disposition of the trees of a residence in lines 

 and geometrical forms produces, at once, the distinctive cha- 

 racter desired. On the other hand, when a whole country 

 is enclosed and planted in geometrical lines and forms, the 

 natural mode is resorted to for the same end. These two 

 styles of landscape-gardening may almost be said to have 

 become exhausted in England. A man of wealth and taste 

 now hardly acquires any distinction by planting a park with 

 indigenous trees, either in the ancient geometrical, or in the 

 modern natural manner. This distinction can now seldom 

 be produced, but by having recourse to exotic trees, disposed 

 either in the natural or in the geometrical manner, or in a 

 mixed style, according to local circumstances and the end 

 in view. This is the commencement of a third era in the 

 progress of landscape-gardening. 



We recommend Bear Wood both to the wealthy citizen 

 who wishes to create a country residence, and to the young 

 gardener who is desirous of acquiring the art of laying out 

 grounds. To the former we recommend it, as showing the 

 sort of soil, which, from its general unsuitableness for corn 

 culture, as well as from its dryness and its elevated situation, 

 may most economically and judiciously be employed in plant- 



