PART VI. ORNAMENTAL GARDENING. 



335 



Grouping has been explained under Painting. It effects 

 variety, intricacy, and harmony, and may be applied either to 

 objects of the same kind in which the chief principle is con- 

 trast of the parts, or to objects of different kinds in which the 

 chief principle is disposition or contrast of different objects. 

 It is applicable to all the larger scenes of ornamental garden- 

 ing, in connexion with all the natural principles of arrange- 

 ment, except culture and bordering, where it would cause much 

 inconvenience in pulverizing the soil. Even there, however, it 

 may frequently be introduced with advantage and effect ; but 

 considerable judgment is requisite, to decide when ornamental 

 effect should give way to convenient culture. In shrubberies, 

 and scattered trees or shrubs, either alone or seen in connexion 

 with any of the other materials of ornamental gardening, 

 grouping is an indispensable requisite, and can never be omitted 

 without foregoing one of the greatest beauties in nature; one 

 which is universally prevalent in every variety of natural 

 scenery, which is instantly perceived, and so highly fascinating 

 to the man of taste, that no other beauty whatever can com- 

 pensate for its absence. It will be at once perceived, that the 

 beauty I mean is connexion : which, according to the objects 

 connected, may either produce order, variety, intricacy, or 

 harmony. Unfortunately, however, it is a beauty not much, if 

 at all, perceived by gardeners, and is rather adverse to the 

 principles of cultivation, and that love of offspring inherent in 



