THE planter's GUIDE. 



51 



ing has made great advances in France. The magnificent 

 and expensive scale on which the efforts of that prince 

 were conducted, rather discouraged than invited imita- 

 tion or competition. The French nobihty and gentry, in 

 former times, never resided much on their estates ; and 

 the Revohition, which has changed many other things, has 

 made little alteration on their taste for rural pleasures. 

 What a man has not frequently under his eye, he feels 

 little desire to improve or embellish. The freedom and 

 freshness of natural scenery can have few charms for him 

 who is taught to consider Paris as the undoubted centre 

 of all earthly enjoyment; and another century might pass 

 away ere a true-born Frenchman could either acquire or 

 comprehend this species of British predilection. The art, 

 therefore, of giving immediate effect to wood, like that of 

 creating real landscape, is now regarded, as heretofore in 

 France, in the light of a mechanical process, fortuitously 

 practised, and little valued for either ornament or use. 



Madame de Sevigne mentions, in one of her letters, 

 that at her country-seat, " aux Rochers,'' they raised great 

 woods, and transplanted trees of thirty and forty feet 

 high. This account is very vague and unsatisfactory, as 

 she says nothing of the means which were employed to 

 accomplish the work. But Madame de Sevigne probably 

 I told all she knew ; and we may believe they did their 

 best to follow the example set by the Grand Monarque, 

 although with inferior powers of execution. At present 

 in France, as we travel along, we frequently see trees 

 of some size, which have been transferred in order to 

 decorate the sides of the roads. The mode of pro- 

 ceeding seems to be the same as that directed by Evelyn, 

 (who probably borrowed it from the French,) namely, to 

 raise the tree by the ordinary methods ; to lop and dis- 

 branch it completely ; and then, in planting it anew, to 



