720 Summary Vie*® of the Progress of Gardening, 



Instead of cutting off the points of the shoots, let the gardener 

 cut out large branches, or even cut out some entire plants, 

 so as to produce bold inlets in some places, and bold projections 

 in others. In doing this, let him beware of forming an outline 

 by alternate outlets and inlets of nearly the same size ; for such 

 an outline, taken as a whole, will be almost as regular as the other, 

 though not quite so monotonous. He must make large openings 

 in some places, and smaller ones in others, and vary these in size 

 and situation, so as to produce features; that is, part of the 

 outline must be chiefly characterised by prominences, and other 

 parts by recesses, and some of the prominences must be higher 

 than others, &c. 



We dislike all absolute rules, and must never be considered 

 as giving any that are not liable to exceptions ; but if there is 

 one rule in the management of pleasure-ground that admits of 

 fewer exceptions than another, we think it is this — that there 

 ought to be no part of a pleasure-ground dug after the trees 

 and shrubs are fairly established, except the flower-beds. In 

 some soils and situations, the trees and shrubs will be esta- 

 blished in two years ; in others, it may require three or four, but 

 in none can it require more than five or six ; and from the 

 period when the trees and shrubs are established, whatever that 

 may be, all digging of the surface, and all paring of the inner 

 verge, ought to cease, except in beds solely devoted to flowers, 

 roses, or some of the more delicate kinds of peat earth shrubs. 



If those errors, which we have pointed out in such detail as 

 to be understood by every gardener, were avoided, there would 

 be a considerable saving of labour, which might be applied to 

 the higher keeping of the flower-gardens, the beds of which are, 

 in very few places that we know, kept properly covered with 

 flowers. 



The grand cause of all these errors, we think, arises from 

 this ; that a practical gardener, who is not a reader, and who 

 has not paid considerable attention to landscape-gardening, 

 being constantly occupied with the means, mistakes these for the 

 end of his art. Hence, he considers freshly pared verges (which 

 to us are an abomination, for reasons many times before given, 

 and indeed so recently as in p. 672.), freshly hoed and raked 

 surfaces, evergreens cut in so as to form a close compact hedge- 

 like surface, and dug ground among grown-up shrubs and trees, 

 as evidences of care and labour, beyond which he has not ac- 

 quired the faculty of seeing. It is, therefore, for the employer 

 of the gardener of the old school, to require of him, as a rule, 

 to practise what we have been recommending; and, for the gar- 

 dener who belongs to die rising generation, to cultivate his taste 

 for landscape-gardening, so as to be able to practise it from 

 principle. 



