io6 Hints on Landscape Gardening 



rate, they become something quite diiFerent ; but 

 if the hand is present, beauties are continually 

 being added without losing or sacrificing those 

 already in existence. The chief tool which we 

 use — that is, our brush and chisel — is the spade 

 for construction; the chief tool for maintenance and 

 impr\)vement is the axe. It must not rest for a 

 single winter, or it will happen to us with the 

 trees as with the water-carriers in the tale of the 

 "Wizard's Apprentice" — they will grow over 

 our heads. 



But the axe is just as necessary for keeping 

 the plantations everywhere at the right height 

 ■as for attaining the right density, for giving them 

 plenty of air, and for providing against over- 

 crowding. As, moreover, thinning is the quick- 

 est and lightest work, and in winter there is not 

 much else to be done, there is always plenty of 

 time for it, provided one never misses a year. 



To keep large masses of mixed plantations at 

 a given height one must not, as it were, decapi- 

 I tate them all, but only regularly every year cut 

 \ out the highest growth, which then for the 

 /I /| 1 greater part will produce new undergrowth, and 

 v! after a certain term of years will begin in turn 

 to be the highest. In this manner the planta- 

 tions appear always of the same age and natural 

 form, a piece of art of which it may be truly 

 said that it is a pity that it cannot be applied to 

 mankind. 



Where there are narrow vistas, single trees 

 must be decapitated here and there, but this can 



