116 



PARKS AND PLEASURE-GROUNDS. 



park, and the spaces covered with trees should be ex- 

 tended beyond the top of the banks in order to secure 

 a certain amount of breadth. It sometimes happens, 

 that in such planted ravines the lines of light along 

 the upper edges of the slopes, as seen from below, 

 proclaim the poverty of the whole affair. We add an 

 earnest caution against the inconsiderate filling-up of 

 ravines and hollows by means of wood. Such places 

 may have no agricultural, and but little pastoral value, 

 and yet the choking of them up with plantations may 

 be almost the last thing which an improver ought to do. 



Arrangement op "Woods in the Park. — This is 

 a subject second in importance to none which we have 

 hitherto treated. Success in this department is essen- 

 tial to that unity and harmony which are necessary to 

 the development and finished expression of park scen- 

 ery. It is, however, a matter somewhat difficult to 

 handle, both in theory and in practice. For the -sake 

 of clearness, we may begin our remarks with the ex- 

 planation of a few terms which we can not help using, 

 and which, indeed, we have used already. A Group 

 is a term borrowed from the technical language of 

 painters and sculptors. It denotes an aggregation of 

 at least two, but generally more objects, closely related 

 to each other by nearness and position, but only re- 

 motely related, in these respects, to other objects. In 

 the internal structure of the group, the objects are so 

 arranged, that while one or more may occupy leading 

 positions, the others hold only inferior places; at the 

 same time, each must appear to belong to the same 

 combination, and to contribute to the making up of a 

 whole. The external and remote relation of the group to 

 other objects, is of a more evanescent and indefinable 



