186 PARKS AND PLEASURE-GROUNDS. 



is a square or parallelogram ; but these forms can 

 scarcely be introduced into the park, at least visibly, 

 without a wretched effect. Many parks are subdi- 

 vided by such a multiplicity of hedges and walls as 

 to deprive them of all apparent continuity of surface, 

 and therefore of that unity which is always so desir- 

 able. We have often seen the contour of a small hill 

 destroyed by a hedge planted along its top, the slope 

 of a fine bank interrupted by a wall run up or across 

 its breast, or what is perhaps even worse, the bottom 

 of a small and beautiful valley crossed and reerossed 

 by hedge and ditch or dry stone wall, to the utter de- 

 struction of the natural beauty of the locality. Clearly, 

 the internal fences of the park should be so arranged 

 as to avoid these barbarously mutilating divisions of 

 surfaces. Indeed, could the woods be reared for the 

 first forty or fifty years without fences, there might be 

 an almost total absence of that formality and inter- 

 ference with contour so common in most parks ; and 

 there would be much more of that free irregularity of 

 outline which is so characteristic a feature in the group- 

 ing of the natural forest. But as we have already said, 

 internal fences in the park cannot be dispensed with ; 

 yet, in relation to the general scenery, they should be 

 regarded as necessary evils, and those forms and dis- 

 tributions of them should be preferred which are least 

 conspicuous and obtrusive. Lines should be adopted 

 which accommodate themselves to the form of the 

 ground, or which may be most easily masked or re- 

 lieved with scattered trees. With these objects in 

 view, the inclosures of the woods and clumps may be 

 made to form a considerable portion of the divisional 

 fences of the park. 



