112 



PARKS AND PLEASURE-GROUNDS. 



there are certain objects, such as the mansion-house, 

 offices, and portions of the woods, which can seldom 

 be altered, and which must be treated as fixtures. 

 Such objects are not unfrequently sources of great 

 embarrassment. They often so modify the whole of 

 the alterations that the place, even after every possible 

 improvement, is greatly inferior to what it might have 

 been had the fixtures been skillfully arranged at first. 

 All these points, then — the natural contour and ex- 

 pression, the acquired character, and the mutual modi- 

 fications produced by the intermingling of both— must 

 be carefully studied by the artist ; for it is only by 

 means of a matured knowledge of these, and by avail- 

 ing himself of the alterations which they place within 

 his reach, that he hopes to bring out those beauties 

 which the eye of taste can discover slumbering and 

 buried, as it were, in a mass of deformity and confu- 

 sion. ~No quickness of eye can dispense with, hardly 

 any inspiration of genius can supply the want of, 

 careful and accurate study on the ground. 



Planting in the Park. — Planting is the principal 

 means of ornamenting the park ; and accordingly, trees 

 and shrubs are the chief materials with which the de- 

 signer has to operate. On the presence or absence of 

 these, and on their due arrangement and distribution, 

 will depend the superiority which the lands of the park, 

 thus adorned, will have over lands of a similar charac- 

 ter and extent, but occupied simply as pastures. This 

 difference may be small at first, but it will be rapidly 

 developed by the yearly growth of the trees. In this 

 department of planting, various objects are to be kept 

 in view. Shelter may be necessary in particular 

 quarters ; seclusion, also, is requisite. But the principal 



