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REMARKS ON ARBORETUMS. 
It is the universal testimony of those who have bestowed any thought on the 
workings and tendencies of the human mind, that the adoption of any extreme 
course of conduct always eventually leads to an attachment to the opposite extreme. 
And this has been frequently verified in the annals of horticulture. 
Many classes of plants and modes of culture, which hold, for a time, a widely 
spread sway over the votaries of the pursuit, almost invariably give way to a tribe 
or a system as different as possible from those before admired ; while certain flowers 
which happen to be extremely fashionable at one period are scarcely to be met with 
in the majority of places a few years afterwards ; whereas, perhaps, the lapse of a 
similar number of years may find them again installed in public favour. 
As a signal exemplification of the above principle, we have to advert to the recent 
history of exotic trees and shrubs. Without going farther back than the beginning 
of the present century, we shall perceive that in very few collections the really worth- 
less or the more truly ornamental of the rarer kinds were allowed a place. Common 
or second-rate gardens were generally decorated with masses of shrubbery, composed 
of ordinary species and varieties, and specimens of the finer sorts were seldom observ- 
able. Within the last fifteen or twenty years, a singular reaction has taken place. 
Instead of mixed groups, and solitary specimens, brought together or detached with- 
out any regard to their botanical relations, and solely with reference to their 
picturesque effect when viewed in connexion with each other ; it has become 
the fashion to collect all the known species of particular genera, or of every genus 
containing hardy ligneous plants, and to plant them in beds or masses, over a 
greater or less extent of surface, according to their systematical affinity. Such 
collections now bear the name of Arboretums. 
The example of planting Arboretums having been set by several influential 
individuals and societies, and a strong inclination being manifested by others to 
follow out the same plan, it is important to show that what is in some cases laud- 
able and desirable, may not be fit for general adoption, and, in fact, becomes 
absolutely disgusting when too often or improperly repeated. We will first examine 
the object of Arboretums, and see how far it is compatible with the great ends of 
landscape gardening. 
To present, in an aggregated form, a view of all the trees and shrubs that can be 
cultivated in British gardens, so that their peculiar or relative natural beauties or 
singularities may be at once discovered ; to afford the means of investigating the 
affinities and value of all classes of arboreous plants ; in short, to establish a large 
experimental ground for determining the distinctness or identity, the tenderness or 
hardihood, the handsomeness or insignificance, of the woody tribes of vegetation, and 
at the same time ensure as interesting a disposition and display as can be obtained, 
are what we conceive to be the purport of an Arboretum. That it is advisable and 
VOL. VIII. — NO. LXXXVI. 
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