ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 
87 
easier than the graceful improver ; as the majority of the 
latter may be said to begin nearly anew — choosing places 
not for wildness, and intricacy of wood, but for open- 
ness, and the smiling, sunny, undulating plain, where they 
must, of course, to a good extent, plant anew. 
After becoming well acquainted with grouping, we 
should bring ourselves to regard those principles which 
govern our improvement as a whole. We therefore must 
call the attention of the improver to the two following 
principles, which are to be constantly in view : the 'produc- 
tion of a whole ; and the proper connection of the parts. 
Any person who will take the trouble to reflect for a mo- 
ment, on the great diversity of surface, change of position, 
aspects, views, etc., in different country residences, will at 
once perceive how difficult, or, indeed, how impossible it is, 
to lay down any fixed or exact rules for arranging planta- 
tions, in the modern style. What would be precisely adapted 
to a hilly rolling park, would often be found entirely unfit 
for adoption in a smooth, level surface, and the contrary. 
Indeed, the chief beauty of the modern style is the variety 
produced by following a few leading principles, and 
applying them to different and varied localities ; unlike the 
geometric style, which proceeded to level, and arrange, and 
erect its avenues and squares, alike in every situation, with 
all the precision and certainty of mathematical demonstra- 
tion. 
In all grounds to be laid out, however, which are of a lawn 
or park-like extent, and call for the exercise of judgment and 
taste, the mansion or dwelling-house, being itself the chief, or 
leading object in the scene, should form, as it were, the cen- 
tral point, to which it should be the object of the planter to 
give importance. In order to do this effectually, the large 
