76 
LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
only three trees, may have these pleasingly connected in a 
group ; and the largest and finest park — the Blenheim or 
Chatsworth, of seven miles square, is only composed of a 
succession of groups, becoming masses — thickets — woods. 
If a demesne with the most beautiful surface and views, has 
been for some time stifily and awkardly planted, it is ex- 
ceedingly difficult to give it a natural and agreeable air; 
while many a tame level, with scarcely a glimpse of distance, 
has been rendered lovely by its charming groups of trees. 
How necessary therefore, is it, in the very outset, that the 
novice, before he begins to plant, should know how to 
arrange a tasteful group. 
Nothing, at first thought, would appear easier, than to ar- 
range a few trees in the form of a natural and beautiful group, — 
and nothing really is easier to the practised hand. Yet ex- 
perience has taught us that the generality of persons, in 
commencing their first essays in ornamental planting, almost 
invariably crowd their trees into a close, regular clump , 
which has a most formal and unsightly appearance, as 
different as possible from the easy flowing outline of the 
group.* 
* A friend of ours, at Northampton, who is a most zealous planter, related to 
us a diverting expedient to which he was obliged to resort, in order to ensure 
irregular groups. Busily engaged in arranging plantations of young trees on his 
lawn, he was hastily obliged to leave home, and entrust the planting of the groups 
to some common garden labourers, whose ideas he could not raise to a point suffi- 
ciently high to appreciate any beauty in plantations, unless made in regular forms, 
and straight lines. “ Being well aware,” says our friend, “ that if left to them- 
selves I should find all my trees, on my return, in hollow squares or circular 
clumps, I hastily threw up a peck, of potatoes into the air, one by one, and directed 
my workmen to plant a tree where every potatoe fell ! Thus, if I did not attain 
the maximum of beauty in grouping, I at least had something not so offensive 
as geometrical figures.” 
