THE planter's GUIDE. 



53 



and principal inhabitants of the capital, which are still 

 recollected ^Yith feelings of delight. The method of 

 remoying the trees was to lop and deface them in the 

 ordinary fashion, and of course to curtail the roots, and 

 then plant them in an irregular way, or sometimes leaning 

 to one side, the better to imitate nature. Hence, after 

 the interval of many years, late trayellers have found, at 

 all these royal residences, evident marks of such opera- 

 tions in the mutilated appearance of the trees. '''^ 



The Czar Peter, and the Empress Catherine of Russia, 

 made similar attempts to procure the immediate effect of 

 wood at Zarsco-Zelo, and other palaces in the vicinity of 

 Petersburg, on which operations immense sums were laid 

 out by those magnificent sovereigns. The trees were usually 

 raised during the winter, and removed in the time of 

 frost, with vast balls of earth adhering to the roots, and 

 cautiously placed in the same position, as to the north and 

 south, which they had previously occupied. On these 

 occasions the tops of the trees were severely reduced, 

 and so completely disfigured that they seldom recovered 

 the operation. The King of Bavaria, likewise, has of late 

 made many removals at his summer palace near Miinich, 

 on the same defective principles, and with no better suc- 

 cess. Count Potocki, about ten years since, at his seat of 

 Talitzin in the Ukraine, seems to have been more skilful, 

 or more fortunate. In order to please and surprise the 

 Countess, his stepmother, on her arrival at home, after 

 some months' absence, he successfully removed a double 

 row of Lime-trees, of more than twenty feet in height, as 

 an avenue to the house. 



The universal complaint, however, in all these countries, 

 as among ourselves, is the constant decay of the tops, in 

 spite of previous mutilation ; and that even, were that 



* Note XVII. 



