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294 PARKS AND' PLEASUKE- GROUNDS. 



to do with them. He can alter his plans, indeed, 

 while they exist in his own mind or on paper, or even 

 while he is tracing his outlines on the ground. But it 

 is to be .remembered, that the outline, or ground-plan, 

 as it is called, is only the skeleton, if it be so much, of 

 scenery which is to appear in relief, in the form of 

 trees and other elements of landscape. The process is 

 only begun when the outlines are staked out; many 

 other agencies and influences must operate, before the 

 contemplated result is realized. Other artists, if we 

 may so call them, have to take up the brush and pal- 

 ette — the processes of nature, to sum many activities 

 under one term — and the axe of the woodman must 

 have had free play, before the effect designed by the 

 prophetic eye of taste can be accomplished. The 

 aspect of woodland scenery changes more or less per- 

 ceptibly every successive year. Suppose that the rudi- 

 mentary appearance of a park, ten years from planting, 

 could be accurately compared with its full-grown aspect 

 fifty years from the same date, the difference would be 

 striking indeed. Possibly, the designer has never seen 

 it since its first formation ; probably his plans, in re- 

 gard to the distribution of trees, were only very im- 

 perfectly executed in the first planting; it may be 

 assumed as almost certain, that his aims respecting 

 the thinning of masses, the feathering of outlines, 

 and the defining of groups, have been either neglected 

 or imperfectly attained; but, meanwhile, nature lias 

 steadily pursued her course, and, from a variety of 

 causes, which can be more readily imagined than won- 

 dered at, has most inadequately realized the fair ideal 

 of the artist ; and yet, the whole scenic effect is often 

 held to be as justly ascribable to him, as some finished 



