232 NATURE IN DOWNLAND 



At other seasons, too, even when stript bare, the tall 

 beeches please the eye. One would say tbat it was 

 a very bold experiment to plant groves of beeohies 

 and firs on the summits of these round, smooth, pale 

 green hills, yet it has been justified by the fine effect 

 produced. Here are groves that remind one of the 

 unrivalled HoUywater Clump in Wolmer Forest — 

 groves visible at an immense distance, standing like 

 many-pillared temples on the high hills. One does 

 not wish even these most conspicuous groves away, 

 because, I imagine, the country is wooded generally, 

 and the hills are more scattered about and not so 

 high; it is a broken wooded country, and the tall, 

 slender beeches and firs predominate. 



On the South Downs proper, east of the Adur, 

 the case is wholly different : the hills are larger and 

 there is less tillage ; the clumps or groves and woods 

 so few that the effect is strange and inharmonious. 

 The isolated grove that springs suddenly to the sight 

 as one mounts a hill, shady and deepest green on a 

 pale unshaded country, is a blot on the landscape; 

 and here, if anywhere in England, one would be glad 

 to see an axe laid at the root of trees of noble growth. 

 For one cannot say of these trees that they are the 

 " nobler growth of thought," rather we might say 

 that in planting trees in such a place we have been 

 playing fantastic tricks with nature. 



I must confess that I am speaking only for myself ; 

 perhaps no one would agree with me ; and it may be 



