PLANTING. 



103 



Could this just observation have been ex- 

 pected from the advocate for circles and 

 ovals? What agreement, let me ask him, can 

 exist between such monotonous forms and 

 the iS most careless dispositions of wood f How 

 is the genius of the place to be consulted in 

 the universal application of these fine forms? 

 or how is Art to effect her own concealment 

 under them ? When, therefore, the author 

 of the Planter's Guide triumphantly asks, 

 " What shape can be adopted more generally 

 " pleasing than that of the circle, or the oval, 

 " or some modification of it?" he may be 

 answered, " Take any form but that." Nei- 

 ther is it at all apparent, that, however large 

 the masses may be, " the stale objection of a 

 " want of variety, and a too frequent recur- 

 " rence of the same figure, is any way re- 

 " moved ;" as all the variety that can be given 

 will consist in the difference of size in these 

 monotonous forms ; which forms being ne- 

 cessary, according to the writer's statement, 

 for twenty or thirty years, will never fully 

 escape from that thraldom : witness oval and 

 circular groups of full-grown trees in many 

 places worthy of better taste. 



The paragraph which asks the above ques- 



