374 PICTURESQUE IMPROVEMENT. BOOK I. 



Avon, Sec. ; but their beauty, even in fertile level countries, is 

 always less than it might be when these appendages are 

 wanting. 



Wood. — The formation and management of this material is 

 so important, both in picturesque improvement and husban- 

 dry, that with a reference to both these sciences 1 have discussed 

 it in the next part. Here I may observe, that dead trunks, old 

 roots, or decayed branches of trees have frequently an excellent 

 effect in connexion with stones, either as appendages to water, 

 or as the joint materials of a picturesque or wild fore-ground. 



Plants and grasses and low or shrubby growths 

 enter into the composition of every rural landscape. They are 

 used chiefly for two purposes ; either to clothe the surface of 

 ground ; or to enrich, vary, or give intricacy to fore-grounds, 

 abruptnesses, broken ground, or picturesque parts of a scene. 



1. Such as are used for clothing the surface are chiefly the 

 grasses and succulent plants used in agriculture. Occasionally, 

 in landscape, others may be introduced, to give character or 

 variety. Thus in wild scenes the juncus, palustris and effusus, the 

 carexes,fragaria vesca, thymus montana, gallium montanum, bellis 

 perrene, and a great many other plants, may either be encou- 

 raged if already there, or introduced, to give wildness, and take 



