Book 111. 



USES OF TREES AND PLANTATIONS. 



9S9 



importance to the improver, whether he displays water, or erects buildings, or harmonises 

 rocks and mountains. A country-house without trees is felt by every one to be but a 

 part of a whole. 



6772. Trees may direct the eye to objects that would otherwise escape notice, or whose beauties would 

 be lost in a general view. By employing them in the foreground of a scene to shut out uninteresting dis- 

 tance or mere sky, the eye may be led to repose on some agreeable near, or interesting distant object, 

 which it had before wandered over unnoticed. By this sort of indication, accompanied by a seat, the 

 dome of St. Paul's at London, of St. Peter's at Rome, and the cupola of the Iwan Wilika of Moscow, 

 are seen from the grounds of residences at twenty or thirty miles' distance from these capitals ; and in this 

 way the worthy and amiable Shenstone, pointed out the Wrekin, and church-spire of Halesowen, from 

 the rustic path of the Leasowes. 



6773. Trees render indifferent objects interesting when judiciously grouped with them, so as to seem to 

 conceal, by accident, that which we should desire or imagine to be there. Thus, a fragment of a wall, or 

 of a tower, emerging from a thicket, may, by imagination be considered as an index to the main body of 

 the ruined mansion or castle concealed by the wood. A broken gothic arch emerging from a thick wood 

 may seem the commencement of a cloister or the aisles of a ruined abbey. A large stone lying on a naked 

 surface 'is an object of little interest in a picturesque point of view, but surrounded by a fevv trees and 

 bushes, it may be taken for part of a stratum of rock. A few yards of brick wall, standing naked and 

 bare in a field would be considered as a deformity ; partially cover it with ivy, which may first ascend and 

 then mantle over its top, and add a holly or thorn, a briar, and an oak or ash, and a beautiful group is 

 l)roduced. In scenery, wliere great deformities or featureless extent is mixed with beauty or grandeur, 

 trees will conceal the latter, and display the former to advantage. Ranges of naked mountains oiten pre- 

 sent this kind of mixture of feature, dulness and want of grouping (^^. 626.), which no improvement 



but planting could ameliorate and render tolerable. Gilpin, in his Tours to the Lakes and Highlands. 

 &c. has some excellent observations on this subject ; and there are various instances in the Pentland and 

 Grampian ranges of hills where improvements of this sort have been executed with the happiest effect. 

 ifig- 627.) 



6774. Beauty may even be created by trees independently of all other objects. A dull 

 flat surface will be rendered more interesting by scattering a few trees over it, of any 

 sort, and in almost any manner : but it'may be grouped or massed by one, a few, or 

 by many sorts ; or laid out in avenues, stars,, platoons, and other modern or ancient 

 forms of planting, so as to become a scene of positive beauty. Every species of trees 

 has its particular form, bulk, mode of growth, flowering, &c. which constitute its charac- 

 ter ; this character varies with the age of the tree, and its situation, relative to other 

 trees, or to soil, climate, &c. Now, as every tree may be grouped, or combined with 

 those of its own species, or with any or all of the others, in an endless variety of ways, 

 the beauty that may thus be created by trees alone, can only be limited by the extent of 

 surface on which they ai-e to be grown. 



6775. The value of landed property containing plantations is enhanced prospectively by the various pro, 

 perties of trees. " It is very generally known," Sang observes, " that such estates as have a quantity of well 

 arranged, healthy timber upon them, when brought to sale, bring an extra price, according to the quality 

 and value of the wood, not only at the time of sale, but, counting forward on its value, to the period of its 

 perfection. Thus, supposing the half-grown timber on an estate to be valued at ten thousand pounds at 

 the time of the sale, instances are to be found where thirty thousand pounds have been given, over and 

 above the valuation of the lands. The purchasers of such estates wisely foresee the increase of value 

 which will arise from healthy timber growing where it may not only be cherished till of full maturity, 

 but where, probably, it can then be turned to thebest advantage by reason of its local situation. But, besides 

 the real value of grown timber, there is most generally an ideal value attached to it, namely, that of its 

 ornamental appearance." {Plant. Kal. 124.) A landed proprietor, who is a parent, looks on a thriving plant- 

 ation as capital laid out at compound interest, and on the most undoubted security, for the benefit of his 

 offspring ; and he values it in this respect the more, because no man can determine the ratio in which, 

 from the progress of the trees, and the future prosperity of the country, it may increase in value. It does 

 not happen to many to plant trees and cut them down at a mature age ; but this only renders planting a 

 more interesting performance to the man who is in secure enjoyment of an estate ; for in his full-grown 

 trees he finds a link which connects him with his ancestors, and in his young plantations another which 

 carries him down with his posterity to the next age. In this way he may imagine himself a being " hav- 

 ing neither beginning of days nor end of life." 



