House & Garden 
and the fact bespeaks our lack of appreciation 
of what Nature will do for us it we let her. It 
is the word “copse” or “coppice,”—that 
natural tangle of trees, little and big, with bro¬ 
ken outlines against the sky, a mere fragment 
of woodland, perhaps, but in itselt offering a 
thousand beautiful studies in rounded or bro¬ 
ken outline of twig or foliage. Where can 
we find more 
lovely masses of 
broken skyline, 
of color, light 
and shade and 
blossom than 
along our un¬ 
touched hedge¬ 
rows ? What 
has the nursery¬ 
man given us to 
take the place 
of these where 
they have been 
destroyed ? 
If, then, we 
are to invade 
our woods, let it 
be only with 
wood-paths, 
and let these be 
as modest as 
may be where 
few travel over 
them; and 
where the mul¬ 
titudes must 
needs enjoy the 
woods,letgood, 
wide, decently 
leveled and de- 
cently-kept 
paths be run. If 
it is distressing 
to see a rough railroad cut or an embankment 
in the midst of beautiful mountain scenery, it 
is equally so to see a wood overrun by people. 
I know of nothing more unpleasant than a 
picnic grove. There is in it only the feeling 
of desecration. Where people, then, must 
congregate beneath the shade of trees, let 
broad walks be provided in a decent and formal 
way, a way to acknowledge man’s self-respect 
and, at the same time, his reverence for 
Nature; and let those parts of the woods 
not open for such walks be kept sacred, if 
possible, from human footprint or touch. 
I f trees must be planted (I except avenues,) 
plant them as Nature would, not at “suitable” 
distances and each one just as big as the nur¬ 
sery will afford, but sow them hit or miss as 
Nature does and close together or far apart 
as chance may place them, and not all of a size 
for, if you are 
to grow a wood 
or a grove, you 
must leave to 
Nature to 
determine 
which young 
tree shall out¬ 
strip its neigh¬ 
bors. If you 
cannot per¬ 
suade yourself 
that this will 
produce abeau¬ 
tiful effect, go 
into any wild 
natural wood 
and see how the 
roots of even 
the finest trees 
are interlocked 
andtheirtrunks 
almostunitedin 
places. It is by 
this very over¬ 
crowding that 
Nature pro¬ 
duces her most 
beautiful effects 
of light and 
shadow and of 
contrast; it is 
the first cause 
of all pictur¬ 
esqueness in bough and foliage. Luxuriance 
of natural growth should be our aim. 
On the barbarous practice of lopping trees 
I need scarcely comment; but let me make 
another protest. Having planted flowering 
shrubs, why should we trim them into rounded 
balls every winter, and thereby cut off most 
of the bloom-bearing wood ? In their proper 
places the trimming of hedges and box-bor¬ 
ders and yews into stiff architectural shapes 
is one thing; but to trim shrubs, which are 
THE WISSAHICKON DRIVE, PHILADELPHIA 
An example of a road simply and admirably engineered , then left to Nature to beautify 
in her own way. 
609 
