268 SckelVs Landscape-Gar dening. 



interesting effects, and these trees have sprung into existence in 

 the manner just mentioned. 



3. As nature thus provides for every different sort of tree 

 by giving to each its proper situation and soil, it consequently 

 follows that when these requisites entirely fail the oak forest 

 must end, and that at this spot those great transitions of the 

 forests from one sort of tree to another must lake place in 

 which nature displays so much variety and attraction. 



Transitions of natural Woods. 



4. Nature does not withdraw all at once from the oak or 

 beech tree the soil suited to its growth, therefore it does not 

 cease suddenly to extend itself. Before, and at the spot where 

 the transition to another tree takes place, we see large distinct 

 masses of the wood about to end separated from the main body 

 by small spaces; these masses become smaller and smaller, and 

 finally appear in groups and then in single trees, sometimes on 

 waste pieces of ground and far apart from their fellows, and 

 thus end by degrees. 



5. In the same imperceptible manner that the great forest 

 ceases, the new one begins by filling up the small spaces left by 

 the old wood with single trees of the new species ; and, as these 

 spaces become enlarged, the sort of tree continues to spread till 

 it finally becomes the prevailing wood. 



6. Thus Nature proceeds, her transitions from one wood to 

 another are imperceptible, without showing a line of demarca- 

 tion, and without our being able to say, Here they separate. 

 Their transition is a delicate network harmoniously united, in 

 which form is added to form in picturesque order, melting into 

 each other, and at the same time displaying their delightful 

 variety of colour. 



7. This picturesque keeping, these beautiful forms and out- 

 lines of all sorts which nature displays, can be best judged of 

 from an elevated situation. Thence are seen the different 

 forests trenching on each other without confusion, and the 

 oak, beech, birch, and fir forests distinctly developed in grand 

 magnificent masses ; and how one sort of tree imperceptibly 

 gives place to another, both being so harmoniously united, and 

 interwoven with each other, that not the slightest trace of a 

 particular definite line of separation can be discovered, because 

 no line of the sort exists in the ancient forests of nature. It is 

 only in those woods produced by the industry of man, and 

 which are often made in geometrical forms, that we see harsh 

 boundary lines, which also not unfrequently proceed in a straight 

 direction. 



(7o be continued.) 



