288 
LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
this fine climbing plant may be turned to advantage in ano- 
ther way ; in reclothing dead trees with verdure. Sir T. 
D. Lauder says, that u trees often die from causes which we 
cannot divine, and there is no one who is master of exten- 
sive woods, who does not meet with many such instances of 
unexpected and unaccountable mortality. Of such dead 
individuals we have often availed ourselves, and by planting 
Ivy at their roots, we have converted them into more beau- 
tiful objects than they were when arrayed in their own 
natural foliage.” 
The Ivy is not only beautiful upon trees, but it is also 
remarkably well adapted to ornament cottages, and even 
large mansions, when allowed to grow upon the walls, to 
which it will attach itself so firmly by the little rootlets sent 
out from the branches, that it is almost impossible to tear it 
off. On wooden buildings, it may perhaps be injurious, by 
causing them to decay ; but on stone buildings, it fastens 
itself firmly, and holds both stone and mortar together like a 
coat of cement. The thick garniture of foliage with which 
it covers the surface, excludes stormy weather, and has 
therefore a tendency to preserve the walls, rather than accele- 
rate their decay. This vine is the inseparable accompani- 
ment of the old feudal castles, and crumbling towers of 
Europe, and borrows a great additional interest from the 
romance and historical recollections connected with such 
spots. Indeed half the beauty, picturesque, as well as 
poetical, of those time-worn buildings, is conferred by this 
plant, which seeks to bind together and adorn with some- 
thing of their former richness, the crumbling fragments that 
are fast tottering to decay : — 
“ The Ivy, that staunchest and firmest friend, 
That hastens its succouring arm to lend 
