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LANDSCAPE GARDENING, 



" plant, and therefore put to every servile 

 " office. Ifyouwish to skreen your house from 

 " the south-west wind, plant Scotch firs, and 

 66 plant them close and thick. If you want 

 " to shelter a nursery of young trees, plant 

 " Scotch firs ; and, the phrase is, you may 

 " afterwards weed them out, as you please, 

 " This is ignominious. I wish not to rob 

 i( society of these hardy services from the 

 " Scotch fir i nor do I mean to set it in com- 

 " petition with many of the trees of the forest, 

 " which in their infant state it is accustomed 

 " to shelter : all I mean is to rescue it from 

 " the disgrace of being thought fit for nothing 

 <c else, and to establish its character as a pic- 

 " turesque tree. For myself, I admire its 

 " foliage, both the colour of the leaf and its 

 " mode of growth. Its ramification, too, is 

 " irregular and beautiful, and not unlike that 

 u of the stone pine, which it resembles also 

 " in the easy sweep of its stem, and likewise 

 " in the colour of the bark, which is com- 

 " monly y as it attains age, of a rich reddish 

 " brown. The Scotch fir, indeed, in its strip- 

 " ling state, is less an object of beauty. Its 

 " pointed and spiry shoots, during the first 

 ss years of its growth, are formal ; and yet I 



