PREFACE. 



xxi 



anfwer his future defigns, tho' he is twenty years in executing 

 his plan, may, at the end of that time, have his ornamental 

 plantations of equal fize and beauty. 



It has been a great difcouragement, and is a frequent obfer- 

 vation made by men advanced in years, that from the fmall {ize 

 of trees ufually planted, they cannot hope to fee them in any 

 great degree of beauty or perfe(5lion during their lives. By fol- 

 lowing the rules here laid down, this difcouragement will be 

 entirely removed ; and fuch as are above the regard of common 

 expence, may have a flourifhing plantation of well-grown trees 

 in one feafon, as the principles on which the whole of the plan 

 proceeds are infallibly certain, and ought to be convincing, even 

 on perufil of the work, to every perfon of an ordinary capacity, 

 and moderate. knowledge of Gardening. 



In fome papers of the Spectator, on the pleafures of imaginii- 

 tion, we have a rnoft ravifhing defcription of an Evergreen, or 

 Winter Garden. Mr Addifon, the author of thefe papers, from 

 a clofe attention to his immortal writings, was not much fkilled 

 in the pra6lical parts of Gardening, but, when difengaged from 

 more intenfe ftudies, it was his favourite amufement ; and as the 

 llighteft obfervations of fo great a man are infinitely preferable 

 to the moft laboured precifion of an inferior genius, of all the 

 later defcriptions I have read, or plans feen executed, I never 

 was fo much animated on that fubjeifl as from the hints he has 

 thrown out, tho' the defigns for gardens in his time w^cre of a 

 much more contradled kind than now, and lefs imitative of the 

 charmxing negligence of Nature. But after Avhat he has faid, for 

 me to inlarge on the comfort and pleafure ftich a place, not. 



