68 Hints on Landscape Gardening 



by overdoing this work. Nor should the highest 

 trees be always placed in the center and rows of 

 shrubs always along the edges, as most of our 

 gardeners do. The outline of the plantation 

 should, on the contrary, be interrupted by trees 

 trimmed high, especially where the road leads 

 close by them, and trees with low-hanging 

 branches should be set farther back. Often, too, 

 where there is room, one should strive after that 

 graceful negligence, so difficult to emulate, in 

 which Nature remains ever the mistress, by the 

 plantation of single shrubs and trees scattered 

 freely over the grass. So also the clumps in the 

 " pleasure-ground," as I shall presently attempt 

 to describe, should show the greatest variety, not 

 only in the species, but also with regard to their 

 form and situation. Here also it is, as I have 

 said, not always necessary to place the largest 

 trees in the middle and the lower-growing ones 

 graded down to the border. The contrary has a 

 far more natural appearance, and a tall tree ris- 

 ing high out of the bushes along the edge and a 

 broken line of greenery is more picturesque, even 

 in small groups, than masses always rounded and 

 sloping gradually on each side and which would 

 be improved by being broken up. The drawing 

 in Plate IV shows an inferior, and what I have 

 indicated as the better, way, a and b for wood 

 plantations near the paths, and c and d for shrub- 

 beries in the grass plots. 



How far one may plant with the deliberate 

 intention of attaining artistic light and shade and 



