THE planter's guide. 



121 



generate provisions which they should previously have 

 acquired ; when at length, having overcome the evils of 

 injudicious selection, they only then begin to make that 

 progress which ignorance and mismanagement have 

 retarded/'' 



On the other hand, if his object be to raise close 

 masses of wood, (for hiding, for example, some prominent 

 defect, or attaining some general ornamental purpose,) of 

 which masses the materials are to consist of grove- wood 

 and copse intermixed, it is evident that, excepting per- 

 haps for the outside rows, the protecting properties would 

 be altogether thrown away on such designs. If what has 

 been said above be well founded, trees possessing those 

 properties would, in this situation, soon have them 

 exchanged for the non-protecting, by the heat and shelter 

 which a close mass of wood must always generate. Even 

 were not that to happen, the needless extension of both 

 their branches and roots would prove extremely injurious 

 to a plantation where underwood predominated. In 

 these circumstances, an operator of judgment would 

 select such subjects for his work as possessed the non- 

 protecting properties exclusively, and were far more suit- 

 able to the designs in question. 



These, however, may be considered as extreme cases, 

 while ordinary practice lies in a medium between the two. 

 Thus, in parks or places of any extent, the cHmate and 

 soil are usually as various as the proportions of the pro- 

 tecting properties which have been acquired by different 

 trees. The tree which would succeed in the sheltered 

 valley would have little chance on the exposed eminence ; 

 and to transfer a subject well adapted to the latter to 

 the former site, would be to misapply qualities which are 



* Note I. 



