258 ENGLISH ESTATE FORESTRY 



is too often considered of paramount importance, to the 

 neglect of the wilder but often more natural types of 

 scenery. In small parks, groves are usually confined to the 

 outskirts, where they can take the place of belts or screens, 

 which may hide the boundaries and disguise the true extent 

 of the ground. 



In larger parks they may occupy long ridges, or stretches 

 of high and broken ground which afford facilities for breaking 

 them up into glades, and small openings which destroy their 

 monotony and produce the necessary irregidarity in the level 

 of the tree tops. On flat ground, again, groves may be used 

 for the formation of short avenues or straight green rides, at 

 the end of which, vistas of the surrounding park or country 

 will appear. Their shape and extent will vary, of course, 

 with the situation ; but irregular oblongs, which dwindle in 

 some parts to the narrowness of belts, and in others widen 

 out to a quarter of a mile or so, are probably the best. The 

 margins should be well broken up into clumps and single 

 trees, and no sharp lines of division exist between them and 

 the open ground. Planted and maintained in this manner, 

 groves may constitute never-ending sources of variety and 

 contrast, and are far preferable to a flat unbroken expanse of 

 turf, which is a bleak plain in winter or a sun-scorched desert 

 in summer. 



The trees represented in groves should be of the ordinary 

 forest character — oak, beech, ash, etc., grouped more or less 

 according to their kind; while thorns, hollies, or any other 

 lower growth which can be got to grow in a park, may be 

 scattered about the more open parts. 



Beech is particularly adapted for forming those pictur- 

 esque groups and combinations, in which it appears at its 

 best, and in groves it rarely develops that thick bushy head 

 which often makes it so ugly as a single tree, and long clean 

 trunks of beech, oak, and ash are invariably produced in 

 groves in which thick groups have been allowed to grow up 

 untouched by artificial thinning. The general arrangement 

 of the trees should resemble a number of connected clumps 

 rather than a continuous wood, or a wood in which a number 

 of smaller or larger openings are continually letting in sun 

 and air, and allowing the trees round their margins to develop 



