Botanical Specimens J'rom Nature. 401 



proper distance, the next step is to measure or estimate its 

 height. This being done, and supposing the height to be 19 ft. 

 7 in., then nineteen divisions and a half of the scale are to be 

 counted down from the top of the parallelogram, and a slight 

 line drawn across, as at a a, '\\^Jig' 53. An estimate is next to 

 be made of the diameter of the space covered by the branches, 

 and also of the extent of the branches on each side of the tree. 

 If the branches extend nearly to an equal distance on each side 

 of the trunk, then all that is necessary is to make a mark in the 

 centre of the horizontal line a a, at b, in order to indicate the 

 centre of the trunk. If, on the other hand, the branches extend 

 much more on one side than on the other, then the first step is 

 to set off the total diameter, so as to reach within equal distances 

 of each side of the page, as at c c, in fig. 53.; and supposing the 

 trunk to be one eighth nearer one side than the other, then the 

 place for its centre may be indicated at d on the base line e e. 



The next step is one of some importance. The artist should 

 go up close to the tree, examine its leaves, and make sketches of 

 an individual leaf, and of a cluster of leaves, both to a larger 

 scale than that to which the tree is to be drawn, and then to the 

 same scale to which the tree is to be drawn. These sketches 

 are merely to be considered as studies made with a view to ac- 

 quiring what artists call the touch, or ultimate character of form, 

 with which the tree is to be clothed. As all the masses of light 

 and shade, and all the various forms which a tree clothed with 

 its leaves presents in nature, result from the various disposition 

 of one form of leaf; so, in a picture, all the imitations of these 

 are formed by the repetition of one character of touch. Some- 

 times the leaves on the tree, and the touches in the picture, are 

 so crowded as almost to obliterate each other ; at other times in 

 both they are more distinct, and the form of the leaf, and the 

 character of the touch, may be more distinctly recognised. In 

 densely clothed trees the form of the leaf, and the character of 

 the touch, are most discernible at the extremities of the branches ; 

 in thinly clothed trees they are discernible throughout. As 

 every species of tree has a distinct character of leaf, so has every 

 species also a distinct character of touch. 



The young artist, however, must not suppose, from all this, that 

 to represent a tree it is only necessary to know the form of its 

 leaf, and of its touch ; neither must he suppose that, in making 

 out the details of the tufting or subordinate masses of a tree, he 

 is merely to repeat leaf after leaf: on the contrary, having a 

 knowledge of the forms of the leaves when examined singly, and 

 of their clustering, as exhibited on the points of the branches in 

 the general outline of the tree when examined singly, and also 

 of the tufting or subordinate masses of the tree when examined 

 singly, he must copy from nature, almost without reference to 

 Vol. XI. — No. 65. g g 



