80 Gilpin's forest soenkry. 



arts. No wood is so easily formed under tlie 

 carver's chisel. It is the wood which the inge- 

 nious Gibbon used, after making trial of several 

 kinds, as the most proper for that curious 

 sculpture which adorns some of the old houses of 

 our nobility. 



If not, strictly speaking, a picturesque, the Lime is a 

 very beautiful tree ; and not less, as we think, in its leaf- 

 less form than when clothed, in the early summer, with 

 its exquisite golden green foliage. The objectionable 

 custom of clipping it ' into shape ' is almost, if not quite, 

 as much practised now as in Gilpin's time, and, possibly, 

 the unpicturesqueness ascribed to it by our Author may 

 have arisen, in the specimens which he saw, from some 

 previous process of clipping of which he had no know- 

 ledge. We have spoken elsewhere* of the fohage and of 

 the general character of the Lime, and of the tree in its 

 leafless form we may say that it is— more especially in 

 its earlier years, when untouched by the pruning knife 

 of the gardener, and suffered to grow in freedom — 

 unrivalled in symmetry and beauty. There are, for 

 instance, young specimens growing under such circum- 

 stances at the present time in Kew Gardens which will 

 f ally justify this opinion. For ornamental carving Lime 



* In Our Woodland Trees. 



