CHAPTER XIII. 
A PLAN FOR THE EMBELLISHMENT OF THE SHRUBBERY 
BORDERS IN LONDON PARKS.‘ 
Dug and mutilated Shrubbery in St. James’s Park. 
Sketched in winter of 1879. 
In the winter sea- 
son, or indeed at 
any other season, 
one of the most 
melancholy things 
to be seen in our 
parks and gardens 
are the long, bare, 
naked shrubberies, 
extending,as along 
the Bayswater 
Road, more or less 
for a mile in a place; the soil greasy, black, seamed with the 
mutilated roots of the poor shrubs and trees; which are 
none the better, but very much the worse, for the cruel 
annual attention of digging up their young roots without 
returning any adequate nourishment or good to the soil. 
Culturally, the whole thing is suicidal, both for trees and 
plants. The mere fact of men having to pass through one 
