512 



ON USEFUL AND 



BOOK I. 



The tints of trees may be considered with respect to their 

 harmony with one another — with external scenery — their gra- 

 dation — and their particular effects. The harmony of tints, in 

 general, is derived from known laws in optics, by which certain 

 colours, as red and green, yellow and purple, blue and orange, 

 agree with one another respectively ; and certain other colours, 

 as red and orange, yellow and green, blue and purple, disagree with 

 each other respectively: and again, certain colours, as green, 

 purple, and orange, when mixed together, destroy each other. 

 These harmonies, discords, and privations, will remain true, 

 although the colours should not be bright. The slightest tinge 

 will have the effect. When weak colours that agree are placed 

 adjoining, they support and give spirit to each other. A haw- 

 thorn hedge, among the green of pasture fields, has the same 

 dull, green appearance; but when opposed to the brown of a 

 ploughed field, it appears with peculiar spirit and force. Again, 

 the ploughed field, were it not contrasted with the hedge or 

 some object of a similar colour, would appear dark and co- 

 lourless; opposed to the hedge, it appears of a rich brown. — 

 A Huntingdon willow, observed alone, appears green, like any 

 other tree; but, contrasted with an oak or a chesnut, it ap- 

 proaches to white ; and the oak again, by the contrast, appears 

 much darker than before. If plantations were arranged agree- 

 ably to these principles, the colours would at all times appear 

 striking and forcible ; but from the opposite conduct, that of 



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