EVERGREEN ORNAMENTAL TREES. 
261 
beauty of a country residence in winter. At that season, 
when, during three or four months the landscape is 
bleak and covered with snow, these noble trees, properly 
intermingled with the groups in view from the window, 
or those surrounding the house, give an appearance of 
verdure and life to the scene which cheats winter of half 
its dreariness. In exposed quarters, also, and in all windy 
and bleak situations, groups of evergreens form the most 
effectual shelter at all seasons of the year, while many 
of them have the great additional recommendation of 
growing upon the most meagre soils. 
In fine country residences abroad, it is becoming 
customary to select some extensive and suitable locality, 
where all the species of Pines and Firs are collected 
together, and allowed to develope themselves in their 
full beauty of proportion. Such a spot is called a Pinetum ; 
and the effect of all the different species growing in the 
same assemblage, and contrasting their various forms, 
heights, and peculiarities, cannot but be strikingly ele- 
gant. One of the largest and oldest collections of this 
kind is the Pinetum of Lord Grenville, at Dropmore, near 
Windsor, England. This contains nearly 100 kinds, 
comprising all the sorts known to English botanists, that 
will endure the open air of their mild climate. The great 
advantage of these Pinetums is, that many of the more 
delicate species, which if exposed singly would perish, 
thrive well, and become quite naturalized under the shelter 
of the more hardy and vigorous sorts. 
