154 
LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
a base of shrubs, chiefly evergreens, forming together a sheltering verge 
round the north end of the flower-garden. Through this verge the 
walk is rather shady and confined, and so continues for about fifty 
yards, but gradually opens into a spacious open grove or arboretum, con¬ 
taining all the more choice sorts of forest trees, some of them of great 
size and beauty. The trees all stand on turf, and are disposed in no 
regular order, the largest growing sorts occupying the largest spaces, and 
lower growths irregularly intermixed. Of the first, the oaks, beeches, 
platanus, limes, chestnuts, and tulip trees are magnificent objects, their 
branches, in many instances, sweeping the ground. The second, as 
the different varieties American oak, maples, magnoleas, styrax, 
catalpas, cedars, cypress, &c., are interspersed in the intervals between, 
forming openings, little glades, and interesting groups, constantly 
shifting in their combinations with the position of the spectator, and 
producing the greatest variety, as well in the character and tints of the 
foliage as in the ramification, positions, and general aspect of the trees. 
The branching of trees constitutes a principal part of their character 
and beauty. Some separate from the bole at a very acute angle, and 
retain the erect and aspiring direction of the leader; others diverge at 
right angles, and afterward become pendulous; but a great majority 
rise obliquely at every angle of a semi-circle, and collectively assume a 
conical figure, more or less depressed, or more or less regular, according 
as the lowest branches are fugitive or durable. 
The limes, the platanus, the cypress, larch, and the chief of the firs, 
are beautifully formal. The acacias, white hiccory, deciduous cypress, 
and some of the maples, are lightly elegant; and the oak, the Spanish 
chestnut, and the cedar of Lebanon, are majestically picturesque. But 
it is impossible to give you anything but a very loose idea of either the 
individual characters or of the general effect of this grove of trees. To 
the philo-arborist it is interesting ; and serves the purpose of the general 
planter by enabling him to choose trees by their comparative merits, 
whether for use or ornament. An open grove of noble beech trees 
standing in the park is brought close up to the ha ! ha! and which 
unites the park and garden in this place so intimately, that apparent 
extent is given to both without any ostensible or offensive line of 
separation. 
The leading walk does not pass through the middle of the arboretum, 
but keeps trending towards the ha ! ha ! on the right, and after passing 
through among the insulated trees, pierces a thicket of shrubs and ever¬ 
green oaks on the brink of the sunk fence, at which point we enter upon 
a very different scene, namely, the view of a fine open and extensive glade 
across the park. It is an ascending hollow, of which the further end 
