AEBOEETUM. 



305 



which, however, we trust will be removed by the na- 

 tional liberality as applied and regulated by the Com- 

 missioners of Woods and Forests. 



In order to realize its aims and adequately to fulfill 

 its main purposes, an arboretum requires a botanical 

 arrangement; and that commonly adopted has been 

 the Natural System of the celebrated De Candolle. 

 Such is the method followed by Loudon in his great 

 work, " The Arboretum Britannicum," and also in his 

 abridgment of it in his "Encyclopaedia of Trees and 

 Shrubs." In this arrangement the Natural Orders are 

 thrown into three great divisions, which, in the actual 

 construction of an arboretum, we have found to be not 

 a little unwieldy and unmanageable. We very greatly 

 prefer the classified Alliances of orders given by Dr. 

 Lindley in his " Vegetable Kingdom,"'' as allowing a 

 more unfettered distribution of the materials, and 

 therefore yielding more abundant opportunities for the 

 eliciting of picturesque effects than any other system 

 we have yet studied. We have no doubt that a care- 

 ful examination of Dr. Lindley's valuable work, and 

 a practical acquaintance with the subject, will lead 

 most impartial inquirers to the same conclusion. At 

 the same time the reader is reminded that any botan- 

 ical arrangement of living vegetables can be only an 

 approximation of a very fragmentary character. Trees 

 and shrubs compose only a part of the system of na- 

 ture, though happily some of the groups are very com- 

 plete, even when made up of the hardy species. It is 

 evident that the linear arrangements, such as those to 

 be found in catalogues of names, are not to be enter- 

 tained as satisfactory. The distribution is necessarily 

 made on superficial space, that is, -on space of two 



