CHAPTER V 
FORMAL AND LANDSCAPE PLANTING 
A CERTAIN sense of responsibility attaches to those who 
plant timber, quite out of proportion to that incurred in 
the pursuit of the minor and more transitory forms of 
garden arrangement and design. The builder oak, the 
vine-prop elm and sailing pine, which to-day are so 
small that we can carry them unaided, will develop into 
mighty trees, silent witnesses of the times and doings of 
generations yet unborn. We are planting for posterity, 
and shall be held accountable for the good or evil that 
we do. Tree planting calls forth certain motives of 
unselfishness, for it will be given to others than our- 
selves to see the full beauty which only maturity can 
show. All honour, then, to those old designers, to 
whose thought and care we owe the stately avenues, 
the pride and glory of many an English home. A 
beautiful tree, Nature’s gift of shade and shelter to man 
and beast, is the most precious picture in a fair land- 
scape, and we are doing good work when with care and 
foresight we increase, even in ever so humble a way, the 
timber supplies of our country. 
Avenues are perhaps the most important example of 
formal planting, but as they concern park and woodland 
effects rather than those pertaining to the garden, their 
discussion is somewhat outside the scope of this book. 
Of recent years, however, a practice has arisen among 
designers of making an approach of this kind to quite 
unpretentious dwellings. Even in suburban grounds we 
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