PLANTING. 49 



for the purpose of exhibiting the desired effect, or for obscuring at 

 once some disagreeable object. 



Where a large plantation is required as a screen or shelter, it may 

 then be advisable to plant thicker than would be otherwise required. 

 Neither the bill-hook nor the shears should be permitted among 

 ornamental trees and shrubs ; all superfluous branches should be 

 removed while of the size that a pruning knife is sufficient to 

 separate them from the tree. 



Mr. Price has, in an ingenious manner, reprobated the practice of 

 mixing indiscriminately a great variety of foliage, without having in 

 view its effect ; he says, " Variety, of which the true end is to re- 

 lieve the eye, not to perplex it, does not consist in the diversity of 

 separate objects, but in the diversity of their effects when com- 

 bined in a difference of composition and character. Many think, 

 however, they have obtained that great object when they have 

 exhibited in one body all the hard names of the Linnaean system ; 

 but when as many plants as can be well got together, are exhi- 

 bited in every shrubbery, or in every plantation, the result is a 

 sameness of a different kind, but not less truly a sameness, than 

 would arise from there being no diversity at all ; for there is no 

 having variety of character without a certain distinctness — without 

 certain marked features on which the eye can dwell." On the 

 modern style of forming landscape scenery. Pope has given prin- 

 ciples that may ever be acted upon: "To study natural beau- 



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