130 General Notices. 



Art. III. Literary Notices, 



The Cowthorpe Oak. — An engraving and description of this celebrated tree 

 will shortly be published ; the engraving by W. Monkhouse, and the descrip- 

 tion by C. Empson, author of Sketches of Scenery on the Andes, and several 

 other works. 



Contributions to the Botany of India, by William Griffith, is preparing for 

 publication by subscription. 



MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. 



Art. I. General Notices. 



Single Trees in Park Scenery. — The great use of single trees in breaking 

 the formality of unsightly lines ; in varying an uninteresting surface ; in con- 

 necting together scattered objects ; in forming pleasing groups, or handsome, 

 curious, or singular individual objects, of themselves ; and as substitutes for 

 clumps, is well known. By the liberal use of single trees, not only nume- 

 rous plantations of small plants, surrounded by hedges or other fences, the 

 true meaning or final effect of which cannot be readily foreseen by a spectator, 

 are avoided ; but a foundation is laid for forming a better idea of the future 

 appearance of the scene, than by any other mode of planting whatever. 



Supposing each single tree to be nothing more than a straight stem or pole, 

 it is only necessary for the " prophetic eye " to imagine each of these stems 

 crowned with a head of branches, say three or four times the height, and two 

 or three times the width, of the length of the stem, and the effect of the 

 scenery will be conceived with such a degree of accuracy, that an artist 

 might represent it in a drawing, The stems being all of the same height, will 

 diminish to the eye according to their distance from it, and by imagining the 

 height and width of each tree to diminish in proportion, all the masses of 

 woodiness that will eventually be formed, all the objects that will be concealed, 

 all the open spaces and glades that will be displayed, and all the foreground 

 groups that will be produced, will be present in the mind's eye of the artist, 

 and to the proprietor who has a taste for landscape, as effectively as words 

 on paper convey ideas to a person who can read. 



There are only two objections that we have ever heard made to the substi- 

 tution of single or scattered trees for enclosed masses of young plantations, 

 viz., that the trees will not grow for want of shelter, and that the expense is 

 too great to be incurred. 



With respect to the first objection, we consider it in a great measure nu- 

 gatory ; so much so, that we have never yet, in the course of upwards of 

 thirty "years' experience, met with a situation or a soil in which single trees 

 would not grow and thrive. Opinions of a contrary nature have arisen, as 

 we think, from improper kinds of trees having been planted; from improper 

 modes of planting them ; and from an idea that a great deal is gained in point 

 of growth by drawing up in clumps trees intended to stand singly, and after- 

 wards thinning out those which have served to protect them. We are con- 

 vinced from experience that in no soil or situation whatever is anything 

 gained by growing trees in clumps which are intended ultimately to stand 

 single ; at least as such clumps are commonly managed, viz., left for many 

 years without thinning, or thinned too late and too sparingly. The conse- 

 quence is, that when all the superfluous trees are taken away, those left as 

 single objects, from being exposed to a much greater degree of cold and of 

 evaporation than they have been accustomed to, become stunted even in 



