and of Rural Improvement generally, during 1839. 717 



There are certain errors in laying out grounds, which are 

 founded on mistaken notions respecting the situation, and the 

 operations which art ought to perform, either to heighten the 

 natural character, or to counteract it by producing a character 

 of another kind. Such errors can neither be detected nor cor- 

 rected without seeing the place ; but there are other errors, 

 totally independent of situation and character, which occur in 

 almost every place, and which every gardener, or employer of 

 gardeners, may correct if he chooses, without professional assist- 

 ance of any kind. Of these errors we shall here point out one 

 or two, which we have been anxiously endeavouring to correct 

 for upwards of thirty years, and, we regret to say, with very little 

 success. 



The first error alluded to is, the practice of annually digging 

 the ground in grown-up shrubberies and plantations, and en- 

 deavouring to grow herbaceous flowers and roses along their 

 margins. We object to this practice, because the digging does 

 little or no good to the trees and shrubs after they have at- 

 tained a certain age ; and because, the ground being filled with 

 their roots and shaded by their branches, flowers and roses under 

 such circumstances can never thrive. We object to digging 

 grown-up shrubberies for another reason, viz. the destruction 

 of all stability, and repose of expression. Digging, like other 

 modes of culture, is but the means to an end ; and, in the case 

 of grown-up shrubberies, this end is already attained, as far as 

 concerns the soil. The object of raising a shrubbery, then, be- 

 ing to produce what may be called a refinement on a path 

 through a wood consisting of undergrowths and trees (but 

 differing from such a scene, in having the path gravelled, and 

 the trees and shrubs of a great variety of sorts), the digging 

 destroys all allusion to nature, while it creates no character of 

 art fit to be a substitute. 



Herbaceous flowers and roses may be grown in the margins 

 of shrubberies and plantations for a few years after they are 

 newly made; and they may also be grown in shrubberies or 

 beds of low flowering shrubs, such as Persian lilacs, rhododen- 

 drons, ribeses, &c, which are taken up every three or four 

 years, reduced and planted in fresh soil; but under no other 

 circumstances would we plant, or continue to grow, flowers or 

 roses among shrubs or trees. 



Since the shrubbery is not to be dug, except for a few years 

 after it is first planted ; and since all roses and flowers are to be 

 removed from it, when they can no longer be grown so as to 

 produce handsome specimens; how, it may be asked, is the 

 surface of the ground anions the trees and shrubs to be treated ? 

 To this we answer, that, if the gardenesque mode of manage- 

 ment is adopted (that is, the mode by which every individual 



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