230 PARKS AND PLEASURE-GROUNDS. 



the limitation of the space to which it is restricted 

 leaves some reasons for regret, which, however, we trust 

 will be removed by the national liberality as applied 

 and regulated by the Commissioners of Woods and 

 Forests. 



In order to realize its aims and adequately to fulfd its 

 main purposes, an arboretum requires a botanical ar- 

 rangement; and that commonly adopted has been the 

 Natural System of the celebrated De Candolle. Such is 

 the method followed by London 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 op- 

 portunities for the eliciting of picturesque effects than any 

 other system we have yet studied. We have no doubt 

 that a careful 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 bo- 

 tanical 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 nature, 

 though happily some of the groups are very complete, 

 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 entertained as satis- 

 factory. The distribution is necessarily made on super- 



