Public Parks. 653 



each other in some recognisable order. This order, in a park, 

 may eidier be historical, geographical, geological, or scientific. 

 The trees maybe considered as placed historically in a park, one 

 part of which is very old, and of course has been planted with 

 the commonest trees of the country ; and the other part of which 

 is new, and has been planted with the trees of other countries, of 

 recent introduction. This kind of arrangement cannot often 

 occur, or be considered desirable. The geographical mode is 

 much more interesting and satisfactory ; and it is particularly 

 eligible for a park with a flat surface, and a tolerably favourable 

 soil and climate. In that part of the park where it is desirable 

 that the greatest beauty and interest should be created, the trees 

 of North America should be placed; to these may succeed the 

 trees of Greece and Italy ; next those of France and Germany ; 

 then the British trees; and lastly those of the north of Russia, 

 and of Sweden and Norway. Where the surface of a park is 

 much varied, the geological order will generally be found the 

 best, more especially if there is also a variation in the soil, and a 

 stream or a piece of water in the grounds. The spiry-topped 

 firs, and other trees of mountains and rocks, will occupy the hilly 

 parts ; those of moist ground the margin of the water ; and the 

 trees of plains, such as most of those of America, and the more 

 beautiful of those of Europe, the intermediate spaces. In a sci- 

 entific arrangement of the trees of a park, it will be sufficient to 

 keep the genera and the natural orders together, so that one 

 species of a genus, or one tribe of an order, may not be found 

 separate from the others, in different places of the park. 



If we examine any of our parks, either public or private, by 

 the above rules, derived from the principles laid down, we shall 

 find them altogether deficient. If we examine the plantations of 

 Hyde Park, or Regent's Park, geographically, we shall find trees 

 from the most opposite parts of the world placed close together ; 

 such as the spruce fir of Norway, and the Turkey oak of Asia, 

 or the red oak of North America. If we examine them geolo- 

 gically, we shall find the white-barked birch of the peat bogs of 

 Russia and Sweden adjoining the larch of the Alps ; or the pi- 

 naster of the sea shore, and the willow of the river, close to the 

 Scotch pine of the mountain. The truth is, that parks, hitherto, 

 have generally been planted without the slightest regard to these 

 principles, or to any other ; unless in some cases, where artists 

 have been employed who have understood the principles of 

 grouping and forming a whole ; or where gardeners have imi- 

 tated natural forests, and adopted the principle of causing one 

 kind of tree to prevail in one place. Unfortunately, however, the 

 great leading artists who have practised as landscape-gardeners, 

 since the time of Brown, have been, with scarcely a single excep- 

 tion, deficient in the requisite knowledge of trees. Another 



