THE PLANTING OF ARAUCARIAS 231 
stances that in common fairness ought not to be 
forgotten or omitted from the indictment. First and 
foremost of these is, that it is generally, more often 
than anywhere else, to be found planted in the 
indecorous position of a 20-ft.-square grass plot, in 
front of an inartistically built suburban villa, with 
one prickly-clothed branch protruding into the 
parlour window and another into the panes of glass 
of what should be the best-lighted bedroom of the 
ill-treated dwelling-house. Under these circumstances 
what wonder if it, as an ornamental product of the 
earth, presents a sad dissembling of an appropriate 
appearance! Monkeys copy their masters, we have 
often heard tell, but the poor old Puzzle Monkeys 
have no other option than to follow the fashions of 
those who plant them, and ‘ Fashion,” as Victor 
Hugo once said, ‘‘ has committed more crimes than 
revolutions.” For this error of planters—an error 
greatly in excess of any demerit on the part of the 
tree in the abstract—we have no palliation to offer. 
Were the poor tree itself given a chance, were its 
supersaturated system -for a short time endowed 
with the power of speech, might it not say, and say 
with some truth, ‘“‘ You have placed me in positions 
unfitted, and in whereabouts that are totally out 
of place with any keeping of my traditions, and 
then you have turned round and called me ugly! 
Had you instead planted me in groups in your 
woodlands, where my stems would have been laid bare 
by self-pruning processes, as was my state when first 
you found me in Chili, and were my topmost heights 
given chance to soar into the blue, far and high and 
against the skies of heaven, as is permitted to your 
native product, the Pine of Scotland, for instance— 
then might I, even had I not commanded your 
admiration, at least have escaped the wither of your 
contempt.” 
