gentlemen who intend to consult a landscape-gardener, to engage in preparatory operations for the purpose of clearing the way for him. for him. Such work is better left to the artist himself, and more particularly when he has to deal with old places. In the improvement of existing parks and pleasure-grounds, the operations have, perhaps, as close an analogy to sculpture as to painting. Give the improver a well wooded country, with a surface sufficiently diversified, and he will cut out of it a park and pleasure-ground just as a sculptor will cut a group out of a block of marble. But what would the sculptor say were the stone-cutters in the quarry to insist on reducing his block to what they conceived might be an approximate shape? Equally objectionable is preliminary interference with the proper work of the landscape gardener. We once met with an afflictive case of this kind. A gentleman had been induced to prepare for our advent by thinning out the trees and smoothing the ground in an old wood on the drawing-room front of the house. He unfortunately allowed the operations to proceed in his absence, and on his return home, which he had been obliged to leave for some months, he found several acres of grass, and instead of the old wood, a few ragged, misshapen trees, little better than bare poles, stuck here and there over the surface. The reader will readily conceive the horror of the proprietor when he discovered that the levelling Goths had not contented themselves with smoothing the ground, but had also swept away trees which it would take a century to replace. It was with deep sympathy that we surveyed the scene of desolation, mingled with regret, that for the preservation of many elements of beauty which had, without doubt, existed, we had arrived nine months too late. 228 CHAPTER XIII. THE ARBORETUM. Definition. Recent Introduction.-General idea of Arrangement. SECT. I. Scientific treatment of the Arboretum.-Introductory Remarks.-Dr. Lindley's Classification of the Natural Orders. -Explanations.-Synopsis of Orders and Genera.-Application of Principles.-Transference of the System to the Ground. SECT. II. Decorative Treatment of the Arboretum.-Object in view. - Employment of larger Trees. - Lawns. Surfaces planted. Evergreens.-Arboretums attached to Private Residences.-Sites in Pleasure-Grounds. AN Arboretum, as now planted, may be defined to be a collection of hardy trees and shrubs, arranged according to their natural affinities. The different species and varieties are placed together under the genera, orders, and natural groups to which they belong; and by this means their resemblances and differences are more easily recognized and distinguished-from their being brought into proximity than they would be in any promiscuous distribution. The affinities to which we have alluded are best preserved when the arrangement adopted is that of some one of the botanical systems constructed on the principle of Natural Orders; and fortunately these too exhibit most conspicuously those more external and prominent characters which are apt to strike the eye of even a casual observer. We have thus a happy union of the scientific and the popular elements. Such collections of trees and shrubs are extremely interesting to the botanist, as presenting to his outward eye, in material and living presence, the various forms which in their more refined relations enter into his abstract and recondite arrangements; but they also possess much interest to the general student of nature, exhibiting, as they do, the number and diverse characters of the trees and underwood which tenant the mighty forests, the tangled brakes, the stunted scrubs, and barren heaths, that cover the valleys, plains, and mountains of the colder regions of the globe. Arboretums are only of recent introduction as decorative accompaniments to country residences and public gardens. For a long period, indeed, a considerable variety of trees and shrubs have been cultivated in parks and pleasure-grounds; and flowering shrubs, in particular, have always been favourite materials of ornament in flower-gardens. But scientific classifications of these forms of vegetable life received little attention previous to the formation, in 1823, of the arboretum in the garden belonging to the London Horticultural Society, at Turnham Green. Since that great and meritorious collection attracted the notice which was due to it, many similar, though generally less extensive, arboretums have been formed; so that now no moderate-sized country residence or public park and garden can be considered complete unless something of the kind enters into their arrangements. Undoubtedly the finest arboretum now in existence, at least so far as we are aware, is that in the Royal Gardens at Kew, though even there the limitation of the space to which it is restricted leaves some reasons for regret, which, however, we trust will be removed by the national liberality as applied and regulated by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. In order to realize its aims and adequately to fulfil its main purposes, an arboretum requires a botanical arrangement; and that commonly adopted has been the Natural System of the celebrated De Candolle. Such is the method followed by Loudon in his great work, 'The Arboretum Britannicum,' and also in his abridgment of it in his Encyclopædia of Trees and Shrubs.' In this arrangement the Natural Orders are thrown into three great divisions, which, in the actual construction of an arboretum, we have found to be not a little unwieldy and unmanageable. We very greatly prefer the classified Alliances of orders given by Dr. Lindley in his 'Vegetable Kingdom,' as allowing a more unfettered distribution of the materials, and therefore yielding more abundant opportunities for the eliciting of picturesque effects than any other system we have yet studied. We have no doubt that a careful examination of Dr. Lindley's valuable work, and a practical acquaintance with the subject, will lead most impartial inquirers to the same conclusion. At the same time the reader is reminded that any botanical arrangement of living vegetables can be only an approximation of a very fragmentary character. Trees and shrubs compose only a part of the system of nature, though happily some of the groups are very complete, even when made up of the hardy species. It is evident that the linear arrangements, such as those to be found in catalogues of names, are not to be entertained as satisfactory. The distribution is necessarily made on super ficial space, that is, on space of two dimensions, as it is technically called. Any one who studies the interesting indications of "position," appended by Dr. Lindley to each of his natural orders, will readily perceive the difficulties which exist in this quarter. Some have thought that a perfect co-ordination of affinities can be made only on space of three dimensions, as, for example, in the manner the stars are distributed in the firmament. We cannot pursue this subject, which would lead us into the most profound depths of the science of botany; and indeed we need not enter into it, as in the actual formation of an arboretum we are compelled to work on surfaces. Let it be remembered, then, that both on account of the fragmentary nature of the materials employed, and their numerous and intertwining relations, as well as the superficial form of the space operated on, the arrangement can only be an approximation when considered as a whole. SECT. I.-SCIENTIFIC TREATMENT OF THE Arboretum. In this section it is proposed to give a sketch of the Natural System of botany as it may be embodied in a living collection of hardy trees and shrubs. This, we are aware, may appear something different from, and discordant with, the other subjects treated in this volume ; nevertheless, on mature consideration, we feel constrained either to present it to our readers as absolutely necessary to render the remainder of our remarks intelligible, or to omit the interesting and important subject of the arboretum altogether. We might as well discuss the topography of a country without a map, as describe an arboretum, or give directions for its formation, without |