132 The recent Plantations 



to have been planted there at once ; and that no strip or mass of planta- 

 tion, with its formal boundary fence, was at all necessary to shelter or bring 

 forward these trees. A very obvious and desirable improvement, for which 

 all praise is due to government, is the removal of the brick wall which 

 formed the southern boundary fence to the gardens, and the substitution of 

 an open iron railing in its stead. The object in doing this must have been to 

 allow the spectator within the gardens to get occasional glimpses, through the 

 open railings, of the scenery in the park without ; and to admit the spectator 

 in the park to get occasional glimpses of the scenery in the garden, through 

 glades of turf, in a direction oblique to the line of open fence. Now, by plant- 

 ing a thick belt along the inside of the open fence, these objects are rendered 

 as nugatory as if the brick wall were still remaining, the fence and everything 

 beyond it being completely concealed from the spectator within; while the 

 spectator without will see nothing within the open railing, but a thick mass of 

 plantation. If, on the contrary, only single trees and small groups had been 

 planted in the situation of the belt, the contemplated effect would have been 

 produced from the beginning ; whereas, as things are at present, it will not be 

 obtained for several, perhaps twenty, years, when the belt is thinned out. 



In Hyde Park, during the spring of 1838, an avenue of elm trees, and a 

 number of scattered single trees, were planted ; and we have nothing to object 

 to them, unless it be, that they would have made much more vigorous growths 

 during the summer, had they been planted in the preceding autumn. When 

 trees are planted in October, the roots begin growing immediately ; and the 

 tree, being established before winter, is ready to shoot out branches with the 

 first approach of spring. A tree planted in spring, say in February or March, 

 has the whole of its sap speedily put in motion ; and, being thus forced to 

 develope its buds, while its roots are not yet in a state to imbibe nourishment 

 from the soil, its shoots are comparatively weak and inefficient. In autumn, 

 when the top of the tree is in a dormant state, and when the temperature of 

 the atmosphere is below that of the soil, the whole of the energies of the tree 

 are directed to the formation of roots. In spring, on the contrary, when the 

 temperature of the atmosphere is greater than that of the soil, the energies of 

 the tree are directed to the developement of the buds, in the form of leaves and 

 shoots, while very little addition is made to the roots till the return of the 

 sap after midsummer. Hence are deduced, from a knowledge of vegetable 

 physiology, as well as from experience, the immense advantages of planting 

 trees, and especially large trees, in autumn rather than in spring. Planting 

 in mid-winter is scarcely, if at all, better than planting in spring; because both 

 the roots and the top of the tree are then completely in a dormant state, and 

 the soil much too cold to excite the roots into action. 



In Hyde Park, a number of roundish or oval clumps, and some irregular 

 and continuous belt-like masses, have been formed during the last year and 

 present spring, which, in our opinion, greatly disfigure the Park, and will do 

 so more and more every year, as they advance in growth. This mode of 

 planting appears to us like going back a hundred years, in point of taste ; and, 

 in point of practical knowledge, as supposing the soil and climate of Hyde 

 Park to be similar to that, of some bleak district in Derbyshire or Scotland. 

 The trees in some of the clumps, though from 5 ft. to 10 ft. in height, are put 

 in at the rate of from 3000 to 4000 plants per acre ; and (which, we are sure, 

 will astonish every planter, whether in the north or the south), on the north 

 side of Hyde Park, in a plantation consisting of deciduous trees, many of them 

 15 ft. in height, made last spring, Scotch pines are planted throughout, not 

 more than 1 ft. in height ! We must confess that we do not know anything, 

 in the whole history of planting, on a par with this specimen. What can the 

 Scotch pines possibly be intended for ? They cannot be meant for nurses to 

 plants more than ten times higher than themselves, and not more than 5 or 

 6 feet apart ; and Scotch pines can never be intended for undergrowth. 

 Relatively to the trees which are to remain, they, as well as the others which 

 are to be thinned out, can only be regarded as weeds; which not only deprive 

 the other trees of a great part of their nourishment, but exclude from them 



