XIII 
NOWLEDGE and good taste 
must help in the grouping of 
trees, whatever they are and 
> wherever they stand, if the re- 
sult is to be artistically good. But, of 
course, the more peculiar a tree is in form 
or color, the more unlike the trees which 
chiefly compose the picture in which it is to 
stand, the more carefully should the laws of 
harmony, of simplicity, of proper emphasis 
and agreeable contrast be consulted on its 
behalf, or, rather, on behalf of the picture 
as a whole. 
Four trees with which we are very famil- 
iar are conspicuously peculiar : the Lom- 
bardy poplar, the weeping willow, the purple 
or copper beech, and the white birch. 
No tree is more useful in the right place 
or more ugly in the wrong place than 
the Lombardy poplar. One of Nature’s 
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