342 CARPINUS. 



As an ornamental tree, even in its highest state of 

 developement, it is inferior to the beech, its outline being 

 hard, formal, and lumpy from the rounded and closely- 

 matted nature of its head ; its pretensions to picturesque 

 effect, therefore, are very slight, and it is only for the 

 variety it produces when planted with other trees, and 

 the shelter it affords, that we can recommend its admission 

 into ornamental grounds, or what is called landscape gar- 

 dening. As a nurse, however, to other trees, in planta- 

 tions where profit is the object, we are inclined, from 

 the observations and the trial we have made, to think 

 more favourably of the Hornbeam than the encourage- 

 ment it has hitherto received seems to warrant.* Its 

 natural habit, which affects cold, stiff, clayey soils, points 

 to it as a fit tree in all districts where soil of this nature 

 intended to be planted prevails ; upon such, therefore, 

 it may form a constituent of one of the combinations we 

 have recommended, and, in addition to the portion in- 

 termingled with the other trees, might be planted so as 

 to form a belt of shelter, perhaps even more effective than 

 that of the Scotch or any other fir, as by proper man- 

 agement and trimming it might be converted into a 

 lofty and impenetrable hedge. Nor would it as a nurse 

 or intermediate occupant be less profitable than many 

 of the trees we are accustomed to introduce, as we find 

 that its growth is nearly on a par with that of the beech, 

 the elm, the sycamore, and the ash, and its wood, in the 

 form of thinnings, when it has attained the age of twenty- 

 five or thirty years, equally as valuable as that of most 

 of the trees abovementioned at the same age, (much more 

 so than that of the beech), as we find besides other pur- 



* Boutcher recommends it as a nurse, and considers it as one of the fittest plants 

 to encourage and protect valuable delicate trees. 



