956 



PRACTICE OF GARDENING. 



Part III. 



6865. The oblong-headed trees may be introduced much more frequently than th? spiry- 

 topt sorts; the more obtuse summits blend well with the round-headed trees, and t!:e 

 more acute topt sorts which terminate in flexible flame-like shapes, as the Lombardy 

 poplar, and cypress, form excellent contrasts to the round trees, and serve as transition 

 forms to the spiry tHbe. The round-headed trees, it need hardly be observed, are the 

 most general in nature, at least in temperate climates, and are the most universally ap- 

 jjlicable in ornamental planting. These considerations on the forms of trees refer to them 

 chiefly as in independent plantations ; in connection with buildings, the choice, as to 

 foira, may often be influenced by that of the building, and also by the effect or object in - 

 tended by planting them. 



6SG6. With respect to magnitude, the grand division of woody plants is into trees and shrubs. The bulk 

 and heights of the common trees and shrubs of the country being generally known, the eye estimates the 

 magnitude of other objects by theirs; consequently extraordinary magnitudes, whether large or small, 

 should only be used under extraordinary circumstances. Tlie apparent size, proportion, and distance of 

 objects, might otherwise be deranged, and a discordant effect produced. Shrubs, which have the form of 

 trees ; and low trees, as the mountain ash, the apple and pear, often prodiice this effect, when planted as 

 single objects ; and unless their fruit is prized above every thing else, they should, when introduced for the 

 sake of their flowers, either be planted in the margins of plantations, or grouped with trees of the or- 

 dinary size. The finest small groups are of this description, or composed of common deciduous timber 

 tiees and hardy shrubs, as oaks, chestnuts, hollies, thorns, &c. 



6837. The choice of species must be made subservient to general effect, and to the particular purposes, 

 for which different species are calculated. These have been already pointed out (chap, ii), as well as their 

 uses (chap, i.), and both should be continually present in the mind of the planter. For the more general 

 purposes of planting, the standard trees of the country, native or naturalised, are mostly to be preferred, 

 as growing freely and preserving harmony ; for the purposes of distinction, foreign trees are more likely 

 to answer the end. Foreign trees also contribute greatly to variety and interest, and therefore are indis- 

 pensable in pleasure-grounds, or other scenes of much resort " Any number of species may be admitted 

 into improved grounds ; commencing with the rare sorts near the house, as the centre of art and refine- 

 ment, and ending with the common trees of the country, at sucli distances as the extent and style of the 

 whole may suggest. The proportions of such trees as are only ornamental, and such as are valuable as 

 timber, must be in some degree determined by the character of the place, but chiefly by the taste and view 

 of the owner. Beauty alone, without utility, will not long please ; and a few single groups and plants of 

 the rare species, in the grounds more immediately consecrated to man, will generally afford more satisfac- 

 tion than a lavish display of exotics ; the former will always present a more luxuriant and thriving display 

 of scenery than the latter, and sooner attain the maturity of beauty." {Edin. Encyc. art. Landscape 

 Gardening.) 



6868. Whatever number of species are used, one only should prevail in one place ; or if there be high or 

 low growths, then one of each kind should prevail. Great attention should be had that the species 

 which compose the groups and thickets, or other scattered woodinesses which border on masses, should 

 consist almost entirely of the species which prevail in the masses : if this precaution is neglected, instead 

 of these appendages producing connection and harmony, they will have a tendency directly the reverse. 

 Thickets may next be considered in regard to their form, that is, the form of their ground-plan ; and with 

 groups and single trees in regard to the choice of species. Thickets are produced by nature, by the inroads 

 of cattle, or other animals, grazing or cropping the herbage, and with it the young trees in forest-scenery. 

 On levels and sheltered situations, we find their form comparatively regular, because there appears no 

 permanent or general reason to occasion their encroachment on one side more than on the other. But on 

 varied surfaces and soils a preference is given by depasturing animals to certain natural plants, and the 

 side on which they abound is penetrated more deeply than the other. The plan of the thicket, therefore, 

 varies accordingly. In elevated grounds, exposed to a particular wind, the thickets will exceed in length, 

 which will be found generally to be in the direction of the storm. The cause is too obvious to be pointed 

 out ; but this effect, and every other observed in the groups and thickets of natural scenery, always merit 

 study, and most frequently deserve imitation in creations of landscape-scenery. The species of tree 

 ought obviously to be those of the part of the mass to which they belong ; for thickets, groups, and single 

 trees, ought to resemble disjointed and broken fragments from those masses. But in particular cases, for 

 rendering a prominence still more prominent, or increasing the depth of a recess, a few plants of similar, 

 or not discordant growths, but of darker or lighter greens, may at a distance add to the effect of each. By 

 the same process, with more contrasted species, where no other mode can be put in execution, the form- 

 ality of a single row may in some degree be varied in its situation and contour. {Ed. Encyc. art. Land- 

 scape Gardening.) 



6869. The arrangement of the species to effect variety must evidently be by grouping or collecting them 

 in masses ; for if all the species made use of were intimately mixed together in every part of a plantation, 

 it is evident the eye would meet every where the same species ; so that, as far as variation from that 

 source was sought for, it would be entirely wanting. Uvedale Price has treated this subject with much 

 ingenuity ; and in reprobating the common practice of mixing as many different sorts as can be procured, 

 in order to produce variety, observes, that " variety, of which the true end is to relieve the eye, not to 

 perplex it, does not consist in the diversity of separate objects, but in the diversity of their effects when com- 

 bined together in a difference of composition and character. Many think, however, that they, have ob- 

 tained that grand object, when they have exhibited in one body all the hard names of the Linnaean sys- 

 tem ; but when as many plants as can be well got together are exhibited in every shrubbery, or in every 

 plantation, the result is a sameness of a different kind, but not less truly a sameness that would arise from 

 there being no diversity at all ; for there is no having variety of character, without a certain distinctness, 

 without certain marked features on which the eye can dwell." (Essays on the Picturesque, vol. i.) , 



6870. Jtepton observes, " there is more variety in passing from a grove of oaks to a grove of firs than in 

 passing through a wood composed of a hundred different species, as they are usually mixed together. By 

 this indiscriminate mixture of every kind of tree in planting, all variety is destroyed by the excess of va- 

 riety, whether it is adopted in belts or clumps, as they have been technically called : for example, if ten 

 clumps be composed of ten different sorts of trees in each, they become so many things exactly similar ; 

 but if each clump consists of the same sort of trees, they become ten different things, of which one may 

 hereafter fumish a group of oaks, another of elms, another of chestnuts or of thorns, &c. In like manner, 



