PRUNING AND TRAINING. 
137 
have long made the ground their resting-places, rising again and spreading in the 
vigour of their growth, and rendering more strong what appears the basement of so 
grand a superstructure. 
This last description brings us nearer home, brings us to look upon one of the 
same natural family, the Cedar of Lebanon, in all its grandeur ; and those only who 
have seen a member of this noble genus aged, large, and completely perfect as a 
specimen, can appreciate its magnificence. Here we stop to remark, that no tree is 
more profited by pruning, the effects of which are brought out by accompanying and 
judicious training; and none earlier, in a small state, or more lastingly exhibit the 
good effects of what we refer to. Neither do any require an earlier or continued 
application of the practice than the Cedar of Lebanon ; for it is a simple truth that 
where one large, really well-proportioned, handsome specimen is met with, twenty 
that are ungainly, if not deformed, are found, — and yet such are objects of admiration 
almost universally, though not on account of their beauty. 
The conclusion of the foregoing paragraph having brought us to the ample lawn 
or extensive pleasure-ground, to which the Cedar of Lebanon is too frequently 
confined, we will examine these in the case of the stately Beech or fragrant Lime, 
our favourite Thorn, and ancient Portugal Laurel ; the flowering Acacia, the modest 
Yew, a graceful red or white Cedar, or even the lowly Savine, and scores of others, — 
not whether pruning and training in their case would have been beneficial, for we 
will imagine them as perfect as need be : but whether half-a-dozen, a score, or an 
unlimited number of equally beautiful objects occupying the sites of those that do 
not come up to our standard, would not, we say, at least be as acceptable as the 
solitary one or two which exist, or those we would replace. To show that what we 
have in view is universal in its application, we need only remark that the garden 
whose extent could only accommodate half-a-dozen or a pair of shrubs or trees, as 
objects of ornament, as well as that of the cottage which possesses the solitary Holly 
or Box, and the orchard of half-a-dozen fruit-trees, might as well have them 
uniformly handsome, and their beauty as well as utility developed, as in the case of 
the latter possessing straggling wretched objects, and the preceding cut into conical 
arbours, or tiers of balls, and trained bows and crosses, which are much more 
difficult to produce. 
Having seen the extent to which subjects exist, which pruning and training, as 
operations to create ornamental effect, can be practised upon, and described specimens 
that were by accident examples of what " pruning and training " would with certainty 
effect, we glance at the proper manner of carrying it out. 
Now, no one will deny that every tree of whatsoever kind possesses, in different 
degrees, according to its nature, the inherent capability of growing to a very orna- 
mental object. In other words, no trees or shrubs from choice, so to speak, grow in 
an ugly form ; it is not its own fault that it does so, but the fault of circumstances ; 
so that the actual work of " pruning and training " is the proper direction of a power 
capable of being developed in a gratifying manner, and inherently disposed to do so, 
VOL. xtii. — no. CL. t 
