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tiful trees and shrubs; commoner native forest trees occupying the more distant portions of the grounds.*

PLANTATIONS IN THE MODERN STYLE. In the Modern Style of Landscape Gardening, it is our aim, in plantations, to produce not only what is called natural beauty, but even higher and more striking beauty of expression, and of individual forms, than we see in nature; to create variety, and intricacy, in the grounds of a residence, by various modes of arrangement; to give a highly elegant, or polished air to places by introducing rare and foreign species; and to conceal all defects of surface, disagreeable views, unsightly buildings, or other offensive objects.

As uniformity, and grandeur of single effects, were the aim of the old style of arrangement, so variety, and harmony of the whole, are the results for which we labour in the modern landscape. And, as the Avenue, or the straight line, is the leading form in the geometric arrangement of plantations, so let us enforce it upon our readers, the GROUP, is equally the key-note of the Modern style. The smallest place, having

* Although we love planting, and avow that there are few greater pleasures than to see a darling tree, of one's own placing, every year stretching wider its feathery head of foliage, and covering with a darker shadow the soft turf beneath it, still, we will not let the ardent and inexperienced hunter after a location for a country residence, pass without a word of advice. This is, always to make considerable sacrifice to get a place with some existing wood, or a few ready grown trees upon it; especially near the site for the house. It is better to yield a little in the extent of prospect, or in the direct proximity to a certain locality, than to pitch your tent in a plain,-desert-like in its bareness-on which your leafy sensibilities must suffer, for half a dozen years at least, before you can hope for any solace. It is doubtful whether there is not almost as much interest in studying from one's window the curious ramifications, the variety of form, and the entire harmony, to be found in a fine old tree, as in gazing from a site where we have no interruption to a panorama of the whole horizon; and we have generally found that no planters have so little courage and faith, as those who have commenced without the smallest group of large trees, as a nucleus for their plantations.

only three trees, may have these pleasingly connected in a group; and the largest and finest park-the Blenheim or Chatsworth, of seven miles square, is only composed of a succession of groups, becoming masses-thickets-woods. If a demesne with the most beautiful surface and views, has been for some time stiffly and awkardly planted, it is exceedingly difficult to give it a natural and agreeable air; while many a tame level, with scarcely a glimpse of distance, has been rendered lovely by its charming groups of trees. How necessary therefore, is it, in the very outset, that the novice, before he begins to plant, should know how to arrange a tasteful group.

Nothing, at first thought, would appear easier, than to arrange a few trees in the form of a natural and beautiful group,— and nothing really is easier to the practised hand. Yet experience has taught us that the generality of persons, in commencing their first essays in ornamental planting, almost invariably crowd their trees into a close, regular clump, which has a most formal and unsightly appearance, as different as possible from the easy flowing outline of the group.*

* A friend of ours, at Northampton, who is a most zealous planter, related to us a diverting expedient to which he was obliged to resort, in order to ensure irregular groups. Busily engaged in arranging plantations of young trees on his lawn, he was hastily obliged to leave home, and entrust the planting of the groups to some common garden labourers, whose ideas he could not raise to a point sufficiently high to appreciate any beauty in plantations, unless made in regular forms, and straight lines. "Being well aware," says our friend, "that if left to themselves I should find all my trees, on my return, in hollow squares or circular clumps, I hastily threw up a peck of potatoes into the air, one by one, and directed my workmen to plant a tree where every potatoe fell! Thus, if I did not attain the maximum of beauty in grouping, I at least had something not so offensive as geometrical figures."

"Were it made the object of study," says Price, "how to invent something, which, under the name of ornament,

should disfigure a whole park, nothing could

be contrived to answer that purpose like a

clump. Natural groups, being formed by trees of different ages and sizes, and at different distances from each other, often too by a mixture of those of the largest size with others of inferior growth, are full of variety in their outlines; and from the same causes, no two groups are exactly alike. But clumps, from the trees being generally of the same age and growth, from their being planted nearly at the same distance, in a circular form, and from each tree being equally pressed by his neighbour, are as like each other, as so many puddings turned out of one common mould. Natural groups are full of openings and hollows, of trees advancing before, or retiring behind each other; all productive of intricacy, of variety, of deep shadows and brilliant lights: in walking about them the form changes at every step; new combinations, new lights and shades, new inlets present themselves in succession. But clumps, like compact bodies of soldiers, resist attacks from all quarters; examine them in every point of view; walk round and round them; no opening, no vacancy, no stragglers; but in the true military character, ils sont face partout !"*

The chief care, then, which is necessary in the formation

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*Those who peruse Price's Essay on the Picturesque," cannot fail to be entertained with the vigour with which he advocates the picturesque, and attacks the clumping method of laying out grounds, so much practised in Eng. land, on the first introduction of the modern style. Brown, was the great practitioner at that time, and his favourite mode seems to have been to cover the whole surface of the grounds with an unmeaning assemblage of round, bunchy clumps.

of groups, is, not to place them in any regular or artificial manner, -as one at each corner of at riangle, square, octagon, or other many-sided figure; but so to dispose them, as that the whole may exhibit the variety, connection, and intricacy seen in nature. "The greatest beauty of a group of trees,” says Loudon, "as far as respects their stems, is in the varied direction these take as they grow into trees; but as that is, for all practical purposes, beyond the influence of art, all we can do, is to vary as much as possible the ground plan of groups, or the relative positions which the stems have to each other where they spring from the earth. This is considerable, even where a very few trees are used, of which any person may convince himself by placing a few dots on paper. Thus two trees, (fig. 15,) or a tree and shrub, which is the smallest group, (a), may be placed in three different positions

b

[Fig. 15. Grouping of Trees.]

with reference to a spectator in a fixed point; if he moves round them, they will first vary in form separately, and next unite in one or two groups, according to the position of the spectator. In like manner, three trees may be placed in four different positions; four trees may be placed in eight different positiont (b); five trees may be grouped in ten different ways, as to ground plan; six may be placed in twelve different ways (c), and so on." (Encyclopædia of Gard.)

In the composition of larger masses, similar rules must be observed as in the smaller groups, in order to prevent them from growing up in heavy clumpish forms. The outline must be flowing, here projecting out into the grass, there receding back into the plantation, in order to take off all appearance of stiffness and regularity. Trees of medium and smaller size should be so interspersed with those of larger growth, as to break up all formal sweeps in the line produced by the tops of their summits, and, occasionally, low trees should be planted on the outer edge of the mass, to connect it with the humble verdure of the surrounding sward.

In many parts of the union, where new residences are being formed, or where old ones are to be improved, the grounds will often be found, partially, or to a considerable extent, clothed with belts or masses of wood, either previously planted, or preserved from the woodman's axe. How easily we may turn these to advantage in the natural style of Landscape Gardening; and by judicious trimming when too thick, or additions when too much scattered, elicit often the happiest effects, in a magical manner! In the accompanying sketch, (fig. 16,) the reader will recognize a portrait of a hundred familiar examples, existing with us, of the places of persons of considerable means and intelligence, where the house is

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