i6o 



FLORA AND SYLVA, 



to learn who would deal with them 

 rightly. The art of planting trees with 

 good effect is of far greater importance 

 than the question of the mere divisions 

 and plans of the ground round a house. 

 I never had a true idea of the beauty 

 of a Birch wood until I saw woods in 

 Northern Germany, massed as wood, 

 with nothing to be seen but silver stems. 

 Trees vary with every condition of alti- 

 tude, soil, and climate ; and the only 

 way of knowing them is the actual 

 study in many different places, not only 

 of their cultivation, but their arrange- 

 ment. Take the common pinetum as 

 seen in many country places. An ac- 

 quaintance with the Pine woods of the 

 northern world should save us from the 

 weak way of planting each tree, set 

 out by itself as a " specimen." Even 

 worse is it when, instead of keeping 

 these Pines in the pinetum, they are 

 scattered about the foreground of the 

 house, and some of the finest houses 

 in England are marred by scattering 

 Pine trees in the foreground. The co- 

 nical shape of the conifer, always ugly 

 as compared with the trees of our own 

 country, is only natural to them when 

 young. Of the many questions which 

 the landscape planter has to face that 

 of the forms and grouping of trees is 

 the most important. A knowledge of 

 them is absolutely needed in pleasure 

 grounds, parks, and woods ; not only 

 the ordinary plantation or shrubbery 

 of the country, but also in long-estab- 

 lished woods. This knowledge is not 

 only essential for good planting, but 

 also from an artistic point of view. Nor 

 must it be confined to one aspect only 



of even our few native trees. Take the 

 Oak : how mistaken anyone might be 

 as to its planting who knew only one 

 expression of its beauty ! The Oaks 

 in the country south of London are 

 quite distinct in aspect from those of 

 Warwickshire. Yet the Oak, set close 

 in a Sussex wood, with many silvery 

 columns rising out of Primroses, is as 

 beautiful as any of the fine Oak growths 

 of the Shakespeare country. And this 

 is but one example of the variation of 

 habit of one tree, showing the need for 

 the study of trees in Nature, and not 

 in books. If we travel in mountainous 

 lands where Pines abound, we find that 

 they grow close together, that the "ex- 

 tinguisher" is not their true form, and 

 that they shoot up into handsome stems, 

 often over 100 feet high without a 

 branch. It is a delusion to suppose that 

 there is anything old or right about 

 the common mode of planting coni- 

 fers, as most of them are recent gains. 

 Thinking of all this, how common it 

 is in the first place we go into to see 

 nothing but the muddle-mixture of trees 

 and shrubs from all countries and ele- 

 vations and all characters jumbled to- 

 gether in one plantation, exactly the 

 best thing being done to steal away all 

 character and distinction and even good 

 cultivation ; for, eventually, the coarse 

 things destroy the others, and the good 

 and rare things have little or no chance, 

 while the eye cannot see the real beauty 

 of the forms or even colours of things, 

 the common way destroying good col- 

 our as well as form. We may see the 

 Wellingtonia planted near a window, 

 and trees planted in conditions in which 



