364 PICTURESQUE IMPROVEMENT. BOOK I. 



In offering a few hints upon the operations of art in improving 

 the surface of ground, it may be considered in regard to quality 

 of surface, form of surface, character, and connexion in the parts. 



With respect to quality of surface, ground is either smooth 

 lawn or pasture, rough heathy pasture, swamp, mossy or mea- 

 dow pasture, or entirely naked : each of which have their pe- 

 culiar uses in landscape, according to its character, though 

 most of them generally require to be improved, either in imita- 

 tion of dry lawn or pasture, or meadow pasture : the method 

 of effecting these improvements belongs to agriculture. — Form 

 of surface is various. In regard to the parts, it is either con- 

 cave, convex, a level, a hanging level, abrupt, or broken. The 

 concave is the most agreeable form; the level, or hanging level, 

 the grandest; and the abrupt and broken the most picturesque. 

 With respect to the general surface of ground, it is either un- 

 dulated, composed chiefly of concave and convex forms ; simple, 

 composed chiefly of straight or gently varied lines; or irre- 

 gular, composed of all these forms. These different appear-' 

 ances of the general surface form what is denominated the 

 character of ground; and in the operations of art, whether in 

 strengthening the effect of particular parts, or increasing the 

 expression of the whole, this must ever be kept in view. Thus 

 undulated surfaces may be rendered more characteristic by 

 deepening the hollows, increasing the swells, and softening off 



