XIII 



NOWLEDGE and good taste 

 must help in the grouping of 

 trees, whatever they are and 

 wherever they stand, if the re- 

 sult is to be artistically good. But, of 

 course, the more peculiar a tree is in form 

 or color, the more unlike the trees which 

 chiefly compose the picture in which it is to 

 stand, the more carefully should the laws of 

 harmony, of simplicity, of proper emphasis 

 and agreeable contrast be consulted on its 

 behalf, or, rather, on behalf of the picture 

 as a whole. 



Four trees with which we are very famil- 

 iar are conspicuously peculiar : the Lom- 

 bardy poplar, the weeping willow, the purple 

 or copper beech, and the white birch. 



No tree is more useful in the right place 

 or more ugly in the wrong place than 

 the Lombardy poplar. One of Nature's 



273 



