202 Planting for Picturesque Effect, 



a very marked and unusual character. Now, if there were a 

 call, on the part of purchasers, for the early or the late leafing 

 varieties, or for those of this or that particular tint or form of 

 foliage, nurserymen would soon learn to sort their oaks accord- 

 ingly, in order to meet the demand of their customers ; or 

 planters, by sowing the acorns and raising their own oaks, 

 might adopt the same method themselves. Nothing could be 

 easier than to do this ; for the oak is a tree which developes the 

 peculiar characters which I have above alluded to, at a very early 

 stage of its existence ; even the very first season it springs from 

 the acorn, as will be obvious to any one who will but examine a 

 seed-bed when the young trees are first coming up in the spring. 

 There he will see some in broad foliage, while others are only 

 just emerging above the ground. Every variation of colour, 

 also, will be perceptible, as much as in trees of mature age ; 

 and these peculiarities, it is to be observed, are constant in the 

 individuals, and are retained throughout life : as is the infant 

 seedling, in regard to its period of leafing, and the tints of its 

 foliage, so is the full-grown oak. Even extreme old age is not 

 found to retard the expanding of the leaves, or to affect their 

 colour. I consider a bed of seedling oaks, exhibiting, as it does, 

 such diversity of colour and of form in the foliage, a most 

 interesting object for contemplation ; and I have sometimes 

 fancied that even more of the future characters of the mature 

 tree, such as its propensity to run tall or short in the stem, 

 spreading in the limbs, and the general style and figure of the 

 head and branches, might almost be predicted at this early 

 period : but this, perhaps, is mere idle speculation. 



I may add, that the same discrepance in the period of assum- 

 ing and shedding the leaf is observable in other trees besides the 

 oak, especially in the horsechestnut, the beech, and the ash. 



Allesley Rectory, Feb. 21. 1834. W. T. Bree. 



Aut. V. On producing Picturesque Effect in Plantations, as tvell as 

 Shelter and Profit. By Mr. T. Rutger. 



Perhaps there is no country in the world that can compete 

 with our own, in offering to the eye of the traveller such a diver- 

 sity of scenery, in connection with the comforts of civilisation. 

 We may not be able to boast of so much highly picturesque 

 and truly sublime scenery as some of our Continental neighbours ; 

 yet the almost constant variety of hill and dale, and wood and 

 water; extensive parks, with the mansions of noblemen attached ; 

 numerous villas, adorned with lawns and shrubberies ; together 

 with the neat cottages, verdant meadows, and fields skirted with 



