THE GARDEN BEAUTIFUL

HOME WOODS AND HOME LANDSCAPE

Principle arboribus varia est natura creandis :
Namque aliae, nullis hominum cogentibus, ipsae
Sponte sua veniunt, camposque et flumina late
Gurva tenant: ut molle siler, lentaeque genistae,
Populus, et glauca canentia fronde salicta.
Pars autem posito surgunt de semine : ut altae
Castaneae, nemorumque lovi quae maxima frondet
Aesculus, atque habitae Graiis oracula quercus.
Pullulat ab radice aliis densissima silva :
Ut cerasis ulmisque ; etiam Parnasia laurus
Parva sub ingenti matris se subiicit umbra.
Hos natura modos primum dedit ; his genus omne
Silvarum fruticumque viret nemorumque sacrorum.

VIRGIL, Georgicon, Liber Secundus.

Some trees under no compulsion from men, grow up of themselves, of their
own accord, and spread widely over the plains and the winding river banks,
like the pliant osier and the limber broom, the poplar, and the willow groves
that look so hoary with their grey leaves. Some again spring up from the
dropping of seed, like the tall chestnuts, and the forest-monarch which puts forth
its royal leaves for Jove, the aesculus, and the oaks— in Greece deemed oracular.
With others a forest of suckers shoots up from their roots, as with cherry-trees
and elms— nay, the bay of Parnassus rears its infant head under the mighty
covert of its mother's shade. These are the modes which Nature first gave
to men unasked— to these the whole race of forest-trees and shrubs and sacred
groves owe their verdure. — CONINGTON.

THE

GARDEN BEAUTIFUL

HOME WOODS AND HOME LANDSCAPE

BY W. ROBINSON

AUTHOR OF THE ' WILD GARDEN ' : ' ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN ', ETC.

ILLUSTRATED WITH ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD

LONDON

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET

1907

Oxford : Horace Hart
Printer to the University

PREFA CE

THIS book is for the country house, or any place
where there is woodland, or land to plant ; its object
is to get people, after thought of the needs of a true
garden, to think more of their woods from aesthetic
and other points of view. Its aim is to teach the best
of all lessons for garden-lovers — too often absorbed in
the exotic, the curious, and the tender — that our own
country's trees are the most beautiful we shall ever
have, and our native flowers as fair as any. I do
not mean any extension of the pleasure-ground, so
often a poor { sticky ' thing, little better than the stereo-
typed flower-garden, but the real woodland. Small
gardens are often the most beautiful and the best for
the happiness of their owners ; but we have to think of
the many who have greater opportunities, too seldom
embraced — woodlands that are not brought into any
happy relation with the house and are often not
accessible from it. In the district in which I live
there are hundreds of acres of beautiful woods never
seen by any but the gamekeeper, woods sheeted with
Kingcups, Primroses, and Wood Hyacinths, more
beautiful in their effect than any garden.

These woodland gardens rarely depend on the

261055

\ i Preface

weather, and while Carnations and Roses in the
garden may fail through weather and other causes,
the woodland flowers are always true to their seasons,
and no garden effect can equal theirs in breadth and
in succession of beauty over the same ground. With
their soft background of underwood it is vain for
the gardener to attempt to rival them. During our
winters no real flower-gardening is possible in these
islands, save in favoured spots near the coast, and
even the scared little conifers stuck out in the flower-
beds (as before the King's palace in St. James's
Park last winter) do not help us. Yet our climate
is excellent for the hardy evergreen trees of the north,
which give us shelter, warmth, and dignity ; and
no country of Europe is more favourable to such life
than ours. It is not the 'pleasure-ground* but the
woodland which enables us to grow fine trees, and
their place is the wood and not the pleasure-garden.
How seldom ' pinetums' or botanic gardens in Eng-
land and France contain a well-grown Pine ! The
whole system of dotting trees on grass is a wrong one ;
the true way to enjoy their beauty and favour their
growth is in woodland planting. Those who have no
woods, but have bare lands to plant, can raise woods
in ten years if they keep out cows, horses, rabbits, and
hares for seven years.

Preface vii

Other reasons for taking to the woods are, that
there we at least get away from the vain though
harmful talk about 'styles ' with which most books on
garden design are filled. We also part with the new
and foolish teaching of the forestry books, separating
tree-culture into two branches — arboriculture and
sylviculture. If we go into a real wood anywhere we
may soon see that true beauty is there and vigour
too. Much wealth has been wasted in our islands in
planting Pines in pinetums and pleasure-grounds
where they never show their true character nor even
grow well, in spite of often costly and needless pre-
paration of soil.

In the free woodland weeding or routine of any
kind need not trouble us ; and there we may easily
naturalize good native plants not already to be found
there, or the finer woodland plants of other countries
(Narcissus, Snowdrops, blue Wind/lower) and native
plants not found in our district (Royal Fern, the
Snowflake, and Lily of the Valley).

The open, airy, and well-considered ways I plead
for are not against our woodland work in any way.
The finest trees are often found at the sides of rides,
their roots occupying all the ground ; and such rides
are best for hunting, shooting, riding, walking, and
every use or pleasure to which woodland can be put.

viii Preface

The words 'Home landscape ' in the title lead to the
idea that all of the work suggested in the book may be
done with benefit to the general effect of the landscape.
Two chapters from the 'English Flower Garden ' are
added with the view of making clear the essentials of
garden design and planting, as if we endure a life-
less garden within view of the windows we are not
likely to get to the fairest of all gardens, the Woodland
garden. The hard and ugly lines so often seen about
country houses, and which often come from modern
ways of fencing and stereotyped plans, have no good
reason to be. The artistic eye soon finds them out, and
the artist will get out of their way. The only true test
of all such things is the artistic one — Do they make for
ugliness or for beauty ? Breaking into the woods in
the way I plead for here gives us many chances of
improving the home landscape and opening out views
— often airy stretches — into new country, even the rides
through a foreground of young woods becoming a fine
feature. For the rest, every idea that the book suggests
I have proved the good of myself.

W.R.

Gravetye Manor,
Primrose time, 1907.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I pAGE

GARDEN DESIGN AND RECENT WRITINGS UPON IT , . i

CHAPTER II

ART IN RELATION TO FLOWER GARDENING AND GARDEN
DESIGN 16

CHAPTER III
HOME WOODS 23

CHAPTER IV

THE GREATER EVERGREEN TREES OF THE NORTHERN
FOREST 36

CHAPTER V

THE GREATER SUMMER-LEAFING TREES OF THE NORTHERN
FOREST 50

CHAPTER VI

NATIVE AND EUROPEAN TREES BEST FOR OUR ISLANDS . 77

CHAPTER VII
WOOD AND COVERT FROM SEED ..... 82

CHAPTER VIII
EVERGREEN COVERT . . 88

x Contents

CHAPTER IX PAGE
UNDERPLANTING 96

CHAPTER X
OF MIXED WOODS 99

CHAPTER XI
FORMING WOODLAND RIDES . . . . . . 102

CHAPTER XII
WATER-SIDE PLANTING 107

CHAPTER XIII
SHORE-LANDS PLANTING .... ..-. . . 112

CHAPTER XIV
MOUNTAIN AND HILL AND DOWN PLANTING . . .116

CHAPTER XV
WOODLAND FINE IN COLOUR . . . , . . 123

CHAPTER XVI
AVOIDABLE WASTE IN PLANTING f , . . .131

CHAPTER XVII
THE WOODLAND GARDEN 137

CHAPTER XVIII
FENCING FOR WOODLAND 140

CHAPTER XIX
THINNING WOODS 146

Contents xi

CHAPTER XX PAGE

GRAFTING AND ITS EFFECTS ON TREES . . . 149

CHAPTER XXI

ENGLISH NAMES FOR TREES 153

CHAPTER XXII

NATIONAL AND PUBLIC PARKS AND TREE PLANTING . 157

CHAPTER XXIII

HOME LANDSCAPE 163

INDEX .... 172

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

SPRUCE WOOD, GLOUCESTERSHIRE . . To face page 30

CORSICAN PINES, RIGHTLY GROWN „ ,, 38

THE Swiss PINE (P. CEMBRA) AT HOME . „ „ 44

A GROUP OF CHESTNUTS, BICTON, DEVON . „ ,, 66

NATIVE TREES BEST : SYCAMORES AT TAY-

MOUTH CASTLE . „ ,, 78

EVERGREEN WATERSIDE COVERT, SUSSEX . „ „ 92

WOODLAND RIDE .... „ „ 104

WATERSIDE PLANTING, SUSSEX „ „ 108

THE

GARDEN BEAUTIFUL

CHAPTER I

GARDEN DESIGN AND RECENT WRITINGS UPON IT

OF all things made by man for his pleasure a flower
garden has the least cause to be ugly, barren, or stereo-
typed, because in it we may have the fairest of the
earth's children in a living, ever-changeful state, and
not, as in other arts, mere representations of them. And
yet we find in nearly every country place, pattern
plans, conventional design, and the garden robbed of
all life and grace by setting out flowers in geometric
ways. A recent writer on garden design tells us that
the gardener's knowledge is of no account, and that
gardens

should never have been allowed to fall into the hands of the
gardener or out of those of the architect ; that it is an archi-
tectural matter, and should have been schemed at the same
time and by the same hand as the house itself.

The chief error here is in saying that people, whom
he calls ' landscapists ', destroyed all the ' formal ' gar-
dens in England, and that they had their ruthless way
until his coming. An extravagant statement, as must
be clear to any one who takes the trouble to look
into the thing itself, which many of these writers will
not do nor regard the elementary facts of what they
write about. Many of the most formal gardens in

B

2 The Garden Beautiful

England have been made in Victorian days : the Crystal
Palace, the Royal Horticultural Society's garden at
Kensington, Shrubland, Witley Court, Castle Howard,
Mentmore, Crewe Hall, Alton Towers, and many places
in every county. During the whole of that period
there was hardly a country seat laid out that was not
marred by the idea of a garden as a conventional and
patterned thing. So far from formal gardens being
abolished, as the Irish peasant said of absentees, ' the
country is full of them ! ' With Castle Howards, Trent-
hams, and Chatsworths staring at him, it is ludicrous
to see a young architect weeping over their loss. Even
when there is no money to waste in needless walls and
gigantic water-squirts, the idea of the terrace is still
carried out— often in plains, and in the shape of green
banks piled one above the other, as if they were an
artistic treat. There are hundreds of such gardens
about the country, and the ugliest and most formally
set out and planted gardens ever made in England
were formed in Victorian days, when we are told by
writers who do not look into the facts that all these
things were lost.

It cannot be too clearly seen that 'formal' gardens
of the most deplorable type are things of our own
time, as it is only in our own time that the common
idea that there is only one way of making a garden
has been spread. Hence, in all the newer houses we
see the stereotyped garden often made in spite of all
the needs of the ground, whereas in old times it was not
so, because in those days the stereotyped plans were
not in every office and people had to think of the ground
itself. Berkeley is not the same as Sutton, and Sutton
is quite different from Haddon.

Garden design and recent writings upon it 3

Patterns of flowers and carpet-beds things of our own
time. Moreover, on top of all this formality of design of
our own day were grafted the most formal and inartistic
ways of arranging flowers that ever came into the head
of man, ways happily unknown to the Italians or the
makers of the earliest terraced gardens. The true Italian
gardens were often beautiful with trees in their natural
forms; but bedding out, or marshalling the flowers in
geometrical patterns, is entirely a thing of our own time,
and ' carpet ' gardening is simply a further remove in
ugliness. The painted gravel gardens of Nesfield and
Barry and other broken-brick gardeners were also at-
tempts to get rid of the flowers and get rigid formality
instead. Part of the garden architect's scheme was to
forbid the growth of plants on walls, as at Shrubland,
where, for many years, there were strict orders that the
walls were not to have a flower or a creeper of any kind
upon them. As these patterned gardens were made by
persons often ignorant of gardening, and if planted in
any human way with flowers would all ' go to pieces *,
the idea arose of setting them out as they appeared on the
drawing-board, some of the beds not more than a foot
in diameter, blue and yellow paints being used where
the broken brick and stone did not give the desired
colour!

Loss of old garden ways. With the adoption in most
large and show places of the patterned garden, both
in design and planting, disappeared almost everywhere
the old English garden, that is, one with a variety of
form of shrub and flower and even low trees ; and now
we only find this kind of garden here and there in
Cornwall, Ireland, and Scotland, and on the outskirts
of country towns. All true plant form was banished

B 3

4 The Garden Beautiful

because it did not fit into the bad carpet pattern. All
this can be seen to-day in the public gardens round
London and Paris ; even Kew, with the vast improve-
ment of late years, has not emancipated itself from this
ugly way of flower planting, as we see there, in front
of the Palm-house, purple Beet marshalled in patterns
and the whole laid out in imitation of the worst possible
pattern of carpet. But we shall never see beautiful
flower gardens again until natural ways of grouping
flowers and variety of true form come back to us in the
flower garden.

The wild garden does not take the place of the /lower
garden. After the central error above shown there
comes a common one of these writers, of supposing that
those who seek natural form and beauty in the garden
and home landscape are opposed to the necessary level
spaces about a house. I wrote the ' Wild Garden ' to
save, not to destroy, the flower garden ; to show that
we could have all the joy of spring in orchard, meadow
or wood, lawn or grove, and to save the true flower garden
near the house from being torn up twice a year to effect
what is called spring and summer ' bedding '. The idea
could be made clear to a child, and it is carried out in
many places. Yet there is hardly a cobbler who rushes
from his last to write a book on garden design who does
not think that I want to bring the wilderness in at the
windows, who have given all my days to save the flower
garden from the ridiculous. A young lady who has been
reading one of these bad books, seeing the square beds
in my little south garden, says : ' Oh ! why, you have a
formal garden!' It is a small square embraced by walls,
and I could not have used any other form to get the best
use of the space. They are just the kind of beds made

Garden design and recent writings upon it 5

in like spaces by the gardeners of Nebuchadnezzar,
judging by what evidence remains to us. He no more
than I mistook bad carpets for flowers, but enjoyed vine
and fig and flower as Heaven sent them. All this weari-
some misunderstanding comes from writers not taking
the trouble to grasp the simplest elements of what they
write about.

The flower garden near the house is for the ceaseless
care and culture of many and diverse things, often tender
and in need of protection, in varied and artificial soils,
staking, cleaning, trials of novelties, study of colour
effects lasting many weeks, sowing and movings at all
seasons. The wild garden, on the other hand, is for
things that take care of themselves in the soil of the
place, things which will endure for generations if we
suit the plants to the soil, like Narcissi on a rich orchard
bottom, or blue Anemone in a grove on the limestone in
Ireland. The garden is a precious aid to the flower
garden, inasmuch as it allows of our letting the flower
garden do its best work because relieved of the intoler-
able needs of the ' bedding ' system in digging up the
garden twice a year.

Misuse of terms. Very often terms of gardening are
misapplied, confusing the mind of the student, and the
air is now full of the 'formal' garden. For ages gardens
of simple form have been common without any one call-
ing them 'formal' until our own time of too many words
confusing thoughts. Seeing an announcement that there
was a paper in the Studio on the ( Formal Garden in
Scotland', I looked into it, seeking light, and found only
plans of the usual approaches necessary for a country
house, for kitchen, hall door, or carriage-way. We
gardeners of another sort do not get in like the bats

6 The Garden Beautiful

through the roof, but have also ways, usually level, to
our doors, but we do not call them ' formal gardens'.
There are gardens to which the term 'formal' might
with some reason be applied. Here are a few words
about such by one Percy Bysshe Shelley, whose clear
eyes saw beauty if there was any to be seen in earth or
sky: —

We saw the palace and gardens of Versailles full of statues,
vases, fountains, and colonnades. In all that belongs essentially
to a garden they are extraordinarily deficient.

A few more by Victor Hugo : —

There fountains gush from the petrified gods, only to
stagnate ; trees are forced to submit to the grotesque caprices
of the shears and line. Natural beauty is everywhere con-
tradicted, inverted, upset, destroyed.

And Robert Southey tells us of one

where the walks were sometimes of lighter or darker gravel,
red or yellow sand, and, when such materials were at hand,
pulverized coal and shells. The garden itself was a scroll-
work cut very narrow, and the interstices filled with sand of
different colours to imitate embroidery.

Such gardens may be called formal without too much
disregard of language, and yet one might plant every one
of them beautifully without in the least altering their
outline. It is only where the plants of a garden are rigidly
set out in geometrical design, as in carpet gardening and
bedding out ', that the term ' formal garden* is rightly applied.
We live in a time when men write about garden design
unmeaning words or absolute nonsense ; these are men
who have had no actual contact with the work. They
think garden design is a question that can be settled on
a drawing-board, and have not the least idea that in any

Garden design and recent writings upon it 7

true sense the art is not possible without knowledge of
many beautiful living things, and that the right planting
of a country place is of tenfold greater importance than
the ground-plan about the house.

In many books on garden design the authors misuse
words and confuse ideas. Many, not satisfied with the
good term, ' landscape gardener/ used by Loudon,
Repton, and many other excellent men, call themselves
* landscape architects ' — a stupid term of French origin
implying the union of two absolutely distinct studies,
one dealing with varied life in a thousand different kinds
and the natural beauty of the earth, and the other with
stones and bricks and their putting together. The train-
ing for either of these arts is wide apart from the training
demanded for the other, and the earnest practice of one
leaves no time, even if there were the genius, for the
other.

Landscape gardening. The term ' landscape planting '
is often scoffed at by these writers, yet it is a good one
with a clear meaning, which is the grouping and growth
of trees in natural forms as opposed to the universal
aligning, clipping, and shearing of the Dutch; the natural
incidence of light and shade and breadth as the true
guide in all artistic planting. The term ' landscape gar-
dening' is a true and, in the fullest sense, good English
one, with a clear and even beautiful meaning, namely,
the study of the forms of the earth, and frank acceptance
of them as the best of all for purposes of beauty or use of
planter or gardener, save where the surface is so steep
that one must alter it to work upon it.

We accept the varied slopes of the river bank and the
path of the river as not only better than those of a Dutch
canal, but a hundred times better; and not only for their

8 The Garden Beautiful

beauty, but for the story they tell of the earth herself in
ages past. We gratefully take the lessons of Nature in
her most beautiful aspects of vegetation — as to breadth,
airy spaces, massing and grouping of the woods that
fringe the valleys or garland the mountain rocks— as
better beyond all that words can express than anything
men can invent or ever have invented.

We love and prefer the divinely settled form of the
tree or shrub or flower beyond any possible expression
of man's misguided efforts with shears ; such as we see
illustrated in old Dutch books, where every living thing
is clipped to conform to an idea of 'design' that arose in
the minds of men to whom all trees were green things
to be cut into ugly walls. We repudiate as false and
ridiculous the common idea of the pattern book, that
these aspirations of ours are in any way 'styles', the
inventions of certain men, because we know that they
are based on eternal truths of Nature, free as the clouds
to any one who climbs the hills and has eyes to see.

The true test of a flower garden. The fact that ignorant
men, who have never had the chance of learning these
lessons, make pudding-like clumps in a vain attempt to
diversify the surface of the ground, and other foolish
things, does not in the least turn us aside from following
the true and only ways to get the best expression possible
of beauty from any given morsel of the earth's surface
we have to plant. We sympathize with the landscape
painter's work as reflecting for us, though often faintly,
the wondrously varied beauty of the earth. We hold that
the only true test of our efforts in planting or gardening
is the picture. Do we frighten the artist away, or do we
bring him to see a garden so free from ugly patterns and
ugly colours that, seen in a beautiful light, it would be

Garden design and recent writings upon it 9

worth his seeing and perhaps painting? There is not,
and there never can be, any other true test.

Even if our aim be right, the direction, as in many
other matters, may be vitiated by stupidity, as in gardens
where false lines and curves abound, as in the Champs-
Elysees in Paris. It is quite right to see the faults of
this and to laugh at them ; but how about those who
plant in true and artistic ways ? In Paris there is cease-
less and inartistic and vain throwing up of the ground,
and sharp and ugly slopes, which are often against the
cultivation of the things planted.

The rejection of clipped forms and book patterns of
trees set out like lamp-posts, costly walls where none are
wanted, and of all the too facile labours of the drawing-
board ' artist ' in gardens, first carried out in England,
is set down by these writers on garden design as the
wicked invention of certain men. No account has been
taken of the eternally beautiful lessons of Nature or
even the simple facts which should be known to all who
write about such things. Thus in ' The Art and Craft
of Garden Making' we read : —

So far as the roads were concerned, Brown built up a theory
that, as Nature abhorred a straight line, it was necessary to
make roads curl about. Serpentine lines are said to be the
lines of Nature, and therefore beyond question the only
proper lines.

But nothing is said of the very important fact that in
making paths or roads in diversified country it is often
absolutely necessary to follow the line of easiest grada-
tion, and this is often a beautiful bent line. In many
cases we are not twenty paces from the level space
around a house before we have to think of the lie of the
ground in making walks, roads, or paths. We are soon

io The Garden Beautiful

face to face with the fact that the worst thing we can
attempt is a straight line. If any one for any reason
persists in the attempt the result is ugliness, and, in the
case of drives, danger. Ages before Brown was born
the roads of England often followed beautiful lines, and
it would be just as true to attribute to Brown the in-
vention of the forms of trees, hills, or clouds themselves,
as to say that he invented the waved line for path or
drive. The statement is of a piece with the other, that
the natural and picturesque view of garden design and
planting is the mischievous invention of certain men,
and not the outcome of the most precious of all gifts, of
Nature herself, and of the actual facts of tree and land-
scape beauty. All who have seen the pictures by the
roadsides of many parts of Britain, and the paths over
the hills, and, still more so, those who have to form
roads or walks in diversified country, will best know
the value of such statements.

Variety the true source of beauty in gardens. The very
statement that there is but one way of making a garden
is its own refutation ; as with this formula before us
what becomes of the wondrous variety of the earth and
its forms, and of the advantages and needs of change
that soil, site, climate, air, and view give us — plains, river
valleys, old beach levels, mountains and gentle hills,
chalk downs and rich loamy fields, forest and open
country ?

What is the use of Essex going into Dorset merely to
see the same thing done in the home landscape or the
garden ? But if Essex were to study his own ground
and do the best he could from his own knowledge of the
spot, his neighbour might be glad to see his garden.
We have too much of the stereotyped style already ; in

Garden design and recent writings upon it 1 1

nine cases out of ten we can tell beforehand what we are
going to see in a country place in the way of conventional
garden design and planting ; and clearly that is not art
in any right sense of the word, and never can be.

As we go about our country the most depressing sign
for all garden lovers (this often in districts of great
natural beauty) is the stereotyped garden, probably made
from an office book of plans. There is a belief in the
virtue of paper plans which is misleading and only suits
the wants of professionalism, and prevents the study of
the ground itself, the only way to get the best result.
Some of the new writers have no heart for the many
beautiful things in the shape of trees and shrubs which
have come to us during the past generation or two : —

A very few varieties of English trees are sufficient for all
purposes, and we have yew for hedges, fine turf for a carpet,
and quite enough flowers of brilliant hue that have always
had a place in our gardens without importing curiosities from
abroad.

Variety essential. Now if there is any clear fact about
gardening it is that its charm often arises from variety,
not necessarily botanical variety, but the difference be-
tween a Menabilly and the conventional garden essen-
tially lies in a variety of trees, shrubs, and flowers.
These writers need to be told that it is impossible to
make a beautiful garden without the variety which they
say is useless, not having, of course, any idea of the
dignity and beauty of the trees of Japan, the Rocky
Mountains, and northern Asia, or America.

One such writer says : —

It is no use spending money on gardeners and repairs, as
it might be much better invested in architectural improvements
or waterworks in the pleasure grounds.

12 The Garden Beautiful

This is a stupid and harmful idea, as the two arts are
in no way antagonistic but helpful rather. Take away
all true planting and good gardening from our Castle
Ashbys, Longleats, or Wiltons and what do we gain ?
For remember that the ground about a house, even
slopes which must be terraced, is often very small in
extent compared with the planting we may have to do
in the home landscape.

But the ugly buildings that strew the land everywhere
— Georgian, carpenter's Gothic, Victorian— if we take
away the good planting, the one saving grace about
them, there will be nothing left but an ugly pile to laugh
at. Good building and good planting go so well to-
gether— one helping the other in every way — that it is
odd to see any one writing on the subject without seeing
that it is so. I cannot suppose that any good architect
could fail to see the gain of good planting and good
flower gardening in relation to his work. We have
only the greatest satisfaction with a country place when
both building and planting are good — a rare thing, un-
fortunately.

Any way good that best suits the site. To the good
gardener all kinds of design are good if not against the
site, soil, climate, or labours of his garden — a very im-
portant point the last. We frequently see beds a foot
in diameter and many other frivolities of paper plans
which prevent the labours of a garden being done with
economy or simplicity. In many places where these
hard-patterned gardens are carried out, they are soon
seen to be so absurd that the owners quietly turf the spot
over, and hence in many country places we see only
grass where there ought to be a real flower garden. The
good gardener is happy adorning old walls or necessary

Garden design and recent writings upon it 1 3

terraces, as at H addon, as he knows walls are good
friends in every way, both as backgrounds and shelters ;
but he is as happy in a lawn garden, in a rich valley soil,
on the banks of a river, on those gentle hill-slopes that
ask for no terraces, or in the hundreds of gardens in and
near towns and cities of Europe that are enclosed by
walls and where there is no room for landscape effect
(many of them distinctly beautiful too, as in Mr. Fox's
garden at Falmouth) ; as much at home in a Border
castle garden as in the lovely Penjerrick, like a glimpse
of a valley in some Pacific isle, or Mount Usher, cooled
by mountain streams.

Waterworks garden design. The same architect turns
to the waterworks as his chief solace : —

But of all the fascinating sources of effect in garden-making
the most fascinating are waterworks. An expensive luxury
as a rule, but they well repay the expense.

Well, there is some evidence of the sort of design
these afford ; some instances terrible in their ugliness
(one hideous at Bayreuth). And with all the care that
a rich State may take of them, can we say that the effect
at Versailles is artistic or delightful ? Water tumbling
into the blazing streets of Roman cities and nobly de-
signed fountains supplying the people with water was
right ; but in our cool land artificial fountains are very
different, and often a hideous extravagance. Of their
ugliness there is evidence in nearly every city in Europe,
including our own Trafalgar Square, rnd that fine (!)
work at the head of the Serpentine. We have also our
Crystal Palace and Chatsworth, designed as they might
be by a theatrical super who had suddenly inherited
a millionaire's fortune. What the effect of this is I need
hardly say, but with all our British toleration of ugliness

14 The Garden Beautiful

I have never heard anybody enthusiastic about their
artistic merits. So far as our island countries go, nothing
asks for more care and modest art than the introduction
into the garden or home landscape of artificial water.
Happily our countries are rich in the charms of natural
water too often neglected in its planting.

Talk of the day about art. Among the great peoples
of old was one supreme in art, from buildings chiselled as
delicately as the petals of the wild Rose to their smallest
coins and bits of baked clay in their graves, and this is
clear to all men from what remains of their work gathered
from the mud and dust of ages. And from that time of
deathless beauty in art comes the voice of one who saw
this lovely art in its fulness : The greatest and fairest
things are done by Nature and the lesser by Art (Plato).
There is not a garden in Britain, free from convention
and carpet gardening, from the cottage gardens nestling
beneath the Surrey hills to those fair and varied gardens
in Cornwall, which does not tell the same story to all
who have eyes to see and hearts to care for the thing
itself. The only sad thing is that such words must be
said again and again ; but we live in a time of much
printed fog about artistic things— the 'New Art' and the
'New Aesthetic'; ' Evolution/ which explains how every-
thing comes from nothing and goes back again to worse
than nothing ; the sliding bog of ' realism and idealism '
in which the phrasemonger may dance around and say
the same false thing ten times over ; and, last and not
least of all among these imbecilities, the teaching that to
form a garden one had better know nothing of the things
that should grow in it, from the Cedar of Lebanon to the
Violets of the alpine rocks.

This teaching is as false as any spoken or written

Garden design and recent writings upon it 1 5

thing can be; there is an absolute difference between
living gardens and conventional designs dealing with
dead matter, be it brick or stone, glass, iron, or carpets.
There is a difference in kind, and while any pupil in an
architect's office will get out a drawing for the kind of
garden we may see everywhere, the garden beautiful
does not arise in that way. It is the difference between
life and death we have to think of, and never to the end
of time shall we get the garden beautiful formed or
planted save by men who know something of the earth
and its flowers, shrubs, and trees. I would much rather
trust the first simple person, who knows his ground and
loves his work, to get a beautiful result than any of those
artificers. We have proof of this in the gardens of
English people abroad that escape from the too facile
plans of the office ; far more beautiful gardens arise, as
in the Isle of Madeira, where every garden differs from
its neighbour and all are beautiful. So it is in a less
degree in our islands, where the more we get out of the
range of any one conventional idea for the garden the
more beauty and freshness and happy incident we see.

CHAPTER II

ART IN RELATION TO FLOWER GARDENING
AND GARDEN DESIGN

THERE is no reason why we should not have true art
in the garden, and none why a garden should be ugly,
bare, or conventional. The word ' art ' being used in its
highest sense here, it may perhaps be well to justify
its use, and as good a definition of the word as any
perhaps is 'power to see and give form to beautiful
things ', which we see shown in some of its finest forms
in Greek sculpture and in the works of the great masters
of painting.

But art is of many kinds, and owing to the confusion
caused in many minds by the loose ' critical ' talk of the
day, it is not easy for all to see that true art is based on
clear-eyed study and love of nature, rather than on the
invention and the ' personality ' of the artist of which we
hear so much. The work of the true artist is marked
by fidelity to nature, and proof of this may be seen in
any great art gallery. But people write much about art
in magazines and papers who are blind to its simple
law, and we may read essay after essay about it without
being brought a whit nearer to the simple truth. On
the other hand we get a false idea that it is not by
observing, but by inventing and supplementing, that
good work is done. The strong man must be there,
but his work is to see the whole beauty of the subject,
and to help us to see it. To distort it in any way for

Flower gardening and garden design 1 7

the sake of making it ' original ' is often a way to popu-
larity, but in the end it means bad work. It may be the
fashion for a season, owing to some one quality, but it
is soon found out; and we have again to turn to the
great masters of all ages, who are always distinguished
for truth to nature, and show their strength by getting
nearer to it.

Realism and idealism. Beauty in its fulness and
subtlety, which is the justification of ( art ', writers of
the day will not take the trouble to see ; they write
essays on art in which many long words occur, but
in which we do not once meet with the word truth.
' Realism ' and ' idealism ' are words freely misused, and
bad pictures are shown us as examples of ' realism ',
which leave out all the refinement, subtlety, truth of
tone, and perhaps even the very light and shade in
which all the real things we see are set. There are men
so blind to the beauty of actual things that they seek to
idealize the eyes of a beautiful child or the clouds of
heaven ; yet we know that no imagining can come near
to the beauty of some things as they are, art itself being
often powerless to seize their full beauty. Only a little,
indeed, of the beauty that concerns us most — that of the
landscape— can be seized for us except by the very
greatest masters. Of things visible— flower, tree, land-
scape, sky, or sea — to see the full and ever- varied beauty
is to be saved for ever from any will-o'-the-wisp of the
imaginary. But many people do not judge pictures by
nature, but by pictures, and therefore miss the subtleties
and delicate realities on which all true art depends.
Some sneer at those who * copy nature ', but the answer
to such critics is in the work of the great men, be they
Greeks, Dutchmen, Italians, French, or English.

c

1 8 The Garden Beautiful

Choice essential. It is part of the work of the artist to
select beautiful or memorable things, not the first that
come in his way. The Venus of Milo is from a noble
type of woman— not a mean Greek. The horses of the
Parthenon show the best of Eastern breed, full of life
and beauty. Great landscape painters like Crome, Corot,
and Turner seek not things only because natural, but
also because beautiful ; selecting views and waiting for
the light that suits the chosen subject best, they give us
pictures, working always from faithful study of nature
and from stores of knowledge gathered from her ; that
also is the only true path for the gardener, all true art
being based on her eternal laws. All deviation from the
truth of nature, whether it be at the hands of Greek,
Italian, or other artist, though it may pass for a time, is
in the end — it may be ages after the artist is dead —
classed as debased art.

Why say so much here about art ? Because when we
see the meaning of true ' art ' we cannot endure what is
ugly and false in it, and we cannot have the foregrounds
of beautiful English scenery daubed with flower-gardens
like coloured advertisements. Many see the right way
from their own sense being true, but others may wish
for proof of what is urged here, as to the true source of
lasting work in art, in the work of the great artists of all
time ; and we may be as true artists in the garden and
home landscape as anywhere else.

Artists in planting. There is no good picture which
does not give us the beauty of natural things, and why
not begin with these and be artists in their growth and
grouping ? For one reason, among others, that we have
the living things around us, and not merely representa-
tions of them, as in the other arts.

Flower gardening and garden design 19

So far we have spoken of the work of the true artist,
which is always marked by respect for nature and by
keen study of it ; but apart from this we have a great
many men who do what is called 'decorative* work,
useful, but still not art in the sense of delight in, and
study of, things as they are — the whole class of decora-
tors, who make our carpets, tiles, curtains, and who
adapt conventional or geometric forms mostly to flat
surfaces. Skill in this way may be considerable without
any attention whatever being paid to the art that is
concerned with life in its fulness.

This it is well to see clearly, as for the flower
gardener it matters much on which side he stands. Our
gardeners for ages have suffered at the hands of the
decorative artist, when applying his 'designs' to the
garden, and designs which may be quite right on a flat
surface like a carpet or panel have been applied a thou-
sand times to the surface of the reluctant earth. It is
this adapting of absurd 'knots' and patterns from old
books to any surface where a flower garden has to be
made that leads to bad and frivolous design — wrong
in plan and hopeless for the life of plants. It is so
easy for any one asked for a plan to furnish one of
this sort without the slightest knowledge of the life of
a garden.

Degradation of flowers. And so for ages the flower
garden was marred by absurdities of this kind as re-
gards plan, though the flowers were in simple and
natural ways. But in our own time the same ' decora-
tive ' idea has come to be carried out in the planting
of the flowers under the name of ' bedding out ', ' carpet
bedding/ or ' mosaic culture ', in which the beautiful
forms of flowers are degraded to the level of crude colour

c a

20 The Garden Beautiful

to make a design, without reference to the natural form
or beauty of the plants, clipping being freely done to
get the carpets or patterns ' true '. When these tracery
gardens were made by people without any knowledge
of the plants of a garden, they were found difficult
to plant, hence there were attempts to do without the
gardener, and get colour by the use of broken brick,
white sand, and painted stone. All such work is wrong
and degrading to the art of gardening, and in its extreme
expressions is ridiculous.

The term ( artistic '. As I use the word ' artistic ' in a
book on the flower garden, it may be well to say that it
is used to mean right and true in relation to all the con-
ditions of the case, and the necessary limitations of all
human arts. A lovely Greek coin, a bit of canvas painted
by Corot with the morning light on it, a block of stone
hewn into the shape of a dying gladiator, the white
mountain rocks built into a Parthenon — these are all.
examples of human art, every one of which can only be
fairly judged with due regard to what is possible in the
material of each — knowledge which it is essential the
artist should possess. Often a garden may be wrong in
various ways — as conifers spread in front of many a
house ; ugly in form, or not in harmony with our native
or best garden vegetation, as shown in mountain trees
set out on dry plains and not even hardy ; so that the
word inartistic may help us to describe many such
errors. Again, if we are happy enough to find a garden
so true and right in its results as to form a picture
that an artist would be charmed to study, we may call
it an artistic garden, as a short way of saying that it
is about as good as it may be, taking everything into
account.

Flower gardening and garden design 2 1

Landscape painting and gardens. There are few
pictures of gardens, because the garden beautiful is
rare. Gardens around country houses, instead of form-
ing, as they might, graceful foregrounds to a good
landscape, disfigure it all, and drive the artist away in
despair. Yet there may be real pictures in gardens ; it
is not a question of patterns, but one of light and shade,
beauty of form, and colour. In times when gardens
were made by men who did not know one tree from
another, the matter was settled by the shears — it was
a question of green walls only. Now we are beginning
to see that there is a wholly different and higher order
of beauty to be sought for in gardens, and we are at the
beginning of a period when we may hope to get much
more pleasure and instruction out of this art than ever
before.

Artists of real power would paint gardens and home
landscapes if there were real pictures to draw; but
generally they are so rare that the work does not come
into the artist's view at all. Through all the rage of
the ' bedding-out ' fever, it was impossible for an artist
to paint gardens like those which disfigured the land
from Blair Athol to the Crystal Palace. It is difficult to
imagine Corot sitting down to paint the Grande Trianon,
or the terrace patterns at Versailles, though a poor ham-
let in the north of France, with a few willows near, gave
him a lovely picture. Once, when trying to persuade
Mr. Mark Fisher, the landscape painter, to come into
a district remarkable for its natural beauty, he replied :
' There are too many gentlemen's places there to suit
my work/ referring to the hardness and ugliness of the
effects around most country seats, owing to the iron-
bound pudding-clumps of trees, railings, capricious clip-

22 The Garden Beautiful

pings and shearings, bad colours, and absence of fine
and true form, with perhaps an ugly house in the midst
of all. We ought to be able to do better than scare
away the very men who would enjoy our work most,
and delight in painting it, rich as we are in the sources
of beauty of tree or flower.

CHAPTER III

HOME WOODS

AT the beautiful gate of the woods one happiness
awaits us, in being free from vain considerations about
' styles '. Our home wood should be only a nobler kind
of garden, and may be so treated without spoiling its
value as a wood. We may see on a spring day in one
place more beauty in a wood than in any garden, from
the bushes and plants wild in the place : Furze, Crab,
Cowslip, Wood Hyacinth, Primrose on northern slopes,
Marsh Marigold in wet copses, and Sloe. But this great
beauty often has to be sought through briery paths and
dense underwood, and the best of it is not easily brought
into relation to the home grounds. In many country
places, where people labour for years with a wretched
stereotyped kind of garden, they take no trouble to see
the beauty of the wild things that grow near naturally
and without cost or care. The supreme beauty of our
native trees is often a sealed book to them, while they
perhaps spend time and money on trees that are tender,
ugly, and useless in our land either for wood or garden.

The wood is a mighty worker for man, a precious gift
of beauty as well as profit. For the wood, unlike the
farm, wants few costly labourers, no weeding or plough-
ing, finds its own fertilizers, its own watering, its own
shade and shelter, all this and much more, and without
the aid of the colleges now thought necessary to make
the good gardener or farmer. If all the wit of man,

24 Home woods

backed by all the learning of the colleges, were on one
side and a wood of our best native trees on the other,
the wood would certainly give a better return than could
be got from any labour or capital applied to the same
class of land in other ways.

Evergreen woods for beauty. Even in the most fre-
quented lines of country we often see the ugliness
which results from neglecting to plant those most precious
gifts of the hills, the Mountain Pines. With few excep-
tions the best of these are the trees of northern Europe
and America, massed in serried armies on the mountains,
and grown on the hilly ground to a vast extent in central
Europe. The first good reason for planting evergreen
woods is their beauty. This we do not get in the kind
of pleasure-ground planting of which the object is to
grow each tree as a specimen dressed down to the ground
in a green ' crinoline '. It is only by grouping and
massing hardy evergreen trees that we can see their
highest beauty, which in most kinds is in the mast-like
stem. Nothing in the form of trees may so much influ-
ence the look of country as these evergreen trees.

Shelter. In continental countries, where the winds
are powerful enough to destroy the crops, shelter belts
of evergreen trees are a great defence ; much more so
in our wind-shorn coast land we have reason to seek
shelter. If, owing to the vast length of exposed coast,
we neglect to give shelter, the trees and shrubs are cut
off as by giant shears above the walls. But where we
have the evergreen wood (beginning with wind-resisting
shrubs, working up to the higher trees) we have shelter,
as at Bodorgan in Anglesey, on one of our most wind-
shorn coasts.

Planting poor land. In dealing with poor land the

Home woods 25

question of profit cannot be excluded, and to what better
use could one put bad land, poor rocky slopes, starved
sandy flats, boggy hills (as in Ireland) in wet districts,
and land too cold and poor to be ploughed with any
profit ? There is no way we can use much of such land
so well as by planting it with the true evergreen forest
trees. There is no Saturday night in the woodland ; it
puts on its profit without other care, adorning and
sheltering the land, helping the living creatures that
haunt the woods, and adding in many ways to the charms
of the country. Few know the power of evergreen
trees to grow on the poorest land. We cannot grow
Oaks on nothing, but I have seen young Pines sow
themselves on land from which the top soil had been
entirely removed by gold hunters. Many poor, cold,
ill-starred hill-sides of the north of England, Wales, and
Ireland could grow the Mountain Pines as well as they
grow in their native lands. The Corsican Pine makes
a growth of from 20 inches to 3 feet a year in a quarry
I know from which every bit of soil has been removed.
Quickness of growth. Another reason for choosing
evergreen trees for planting poor land is that woods can
be so quickly raised. If we make a right choice of
young plants and wire against rabbits and hares before
planting, we may raise sheltering woods in ten years.
Little plants, after a few years' struggle with the turf,
are soon tall enough to give us the shelter and effects
which only evergreen woods can give. Our climate
helps us if we only know how to take advantage of it,
because of its affinity to the sub-alpine conditions in
which the great Pines of the world so often grow in
lands below the snow-line. All the Pines of Europe are
easily grown as forest trees in our country, because the

26 Home woods

conditions are something like those of their natural
climate. If we go to the North African mountains we find
the Cedars growing where the snow lies until May, our
wild flowers and our Thorn and Yew growing with them.
The Atlas and Lebanon Cedars, loveliest trees of the
northern world, are as hardy as the Pines of Europe
if we only plant them rightly. In the same conditions
also the Numidian Fir is happy, and quite hardy in our
climate.

Fuel. In the country house, all the cooking and heat-
ing might be much better done with wood fuel; the
British kitchen range is a costly deception, and, if all our
coal-mines failed, every country parish might grow its
own fuel and light. Yet it is a common thing to see
people bringing coals from Newcastle, and carting it
miles from a railway station, whilst abundance of fuel
lies rotting in their woodlands. The wealth of Britain
in coal has been our loss, in leading us to forget the old
ways of cooking and warming. The architect and the
housemaid, and the modern grate and chimney, are all
against us, and it is not uncommon in a country house
to see people shivering round an ugly grate with a coal
fire. Our evergreen wood is not such good fuel for the
open fire as the native hard woods— Oak, Beech, Ash,
or Maple — but for closed ranges and furnaces it makes
a good fuel. I have lately been staying in a country
house in Hungary, where all the cooking was done with
wood, there being thirty-five people to provide for. Even
the electricity for lighting the house and offices was gene-
rated from the grubbed stubs of Fir trees, which in this
country would be left to rot. Every cottage on the estate
was warmed with wood only, and with perfect comfort.

The objection to the greasy coal of northern England,

Home woods 27

apart from its cost, is that it pollutes the air of the
country as well as that of the town, and many good
gardens and country houses are defiled by it. I have
placed in cottages a wood-burning kitchener which
answers well, and people are grateful for the cleanliness
and the good cookery and baking done with it. The fuel
we use is such as may often be had in old shrubberies
and underwoods— bat wood it is called — of slight value
in the district. Some simple means of cutting it up is
all that is needed for economy.

As some of the Pines grow three feet a year in soil
too poor for any agricultural use, few words are needed
to give an idea of the enormous amount of firing that
might be grown in this way, even from the mere thinning
of the woods. And here it should be said that we must
in all cases follow the true forest way of close planting,
only thinning when the thinning will pay for the labour,
and when the trees to remain are close enough to keep
the shade canopy overhead.

Where to plant. The next thing to consider in our
evergreen wood is where to plant, and this will differ
a good deal according to the ground and district. For
the country house it is often desirable to have a sheltered
retreat and shade in all weathers, and nothing will give
this so well as the evergreen wood, free from labours of
all kinds after planting, unlike most underwoods, which
are the scene of much labour and delay. A house on
high ground, with open land to the north or the east, offers
one of the most tempting situations to plant a hardy Pine
wood in, not merely for the sake of effect, but also for
shelter from the north and east. I have planted such
a wood, and raised it in ten years to dignity and beauty.

A true P^net^lm. A simple Pine wood with rides cut

28 Home woods

through is far better for effect, shelter, and the growth
of trees than the labelled and sticky ' Pinetum ', which
gives neither timber, shelter, nor beauty. In many
districts we see iron-bound clumps dotted over beautiful
ground, and worse than useless for effect ; also skinny
belts not deep enough to keep out the wind. As the
common ways of planting are so hopeless, what others
have we? Well, this is a question of district, of whether
the land is valuable or not, and whether it is rich plain
or rough upland. Large areas of land were broken up
in all parts of Britain when prices were good, which
ought never to have been broken up at all, and are not
fit for anything but timber. Think of ploughing with
four horses in clay land and expecting to get anything
back ! The same field which breaks a man growing corn
at the present prices would give a steady profit if well
planted. It is well, therefore, to plant cold and poor
fields, no matter what their shape, and from the first
year that we plant them we shall have some useful
covert. It is not only fields poor from coldness of soil
on the clay that are not worth cultivating, because some
light lands would be much better planted.

Very often, in diversified country where the land is
not valuable, the old way of very small fields for the
stock has become almost useless for the present needs
of farming. If there are rabbits about, anything grown
in the field is eaten up, trees begin to spread in, and
there is often hardly room to swing a plough. Then it
is often a good plan to plant the whole of the field, suit-
ing the tree to the soil and taking care to bring in now
and then a change of tree. For example, in the wood-
lands south of London we often see hundreds of acres
without an evergreen tree anywhere. This cannot be

Home woods 29

good from the points of view of shelter, game, or beauty,
and, therefore, it is often well to plant some of these
small fields with hardy evergreen trees. Never plant
such with Californian trees, which are not everywhere
successful, but keep to the evergreen trees of Europe —
Scotch, Silver Fir, Spruce, Corsican, Austrian, White
Pine of Canada, and the Cedar of Lebanon, which
people use as a pleasure-ground tree only, although it is
as easily raised from seed, and as free and vigorous, as
any Pine.

Tail ends of fields running into woods, which often
necessitate much fencing within a very small area, are
also good places to plant, especially with an evergreen
tree which we wish to encourage, as such corners and
tail ends are often sheltered by the woods about them.
By planting these, and making a simpler line of fence
round the field, we improve both the field and the wood,
and also lessen the fencing, which is always worth
doing.

Apart from taking advantage of the incidents and
nature of the ground, there may be a reason to plant for
covert in certain positions, and then we must take what
ground we can, always keeping to the principle of mass-
ing and grouping rather than the narrow straggling
clumps which are so common and, generally, fenced
with ugly iron. The larger the mass we plant the easier
the fencing becomes and the simpler for everybody,
both in making and keeping. For cold and wind-swept
districts it is often good to plant on the north and east
sides of favourite fields or gardens, and it is pleasant to
see how much one can do in the way of shelters with
evergreen trees, even in ten years, if we exclude rabbits
and choose the right kind of tree. The common idea

3o Home woods

that good planting means big planting is a great hin-
drance to getting artistic results or even good timber,
and it is well to learn to enjoy the beauty of little trees
and woods, which we may raise in a few years from
very small plants. In many cases trees not a foot high
will beat those bought in nurseries a yard high. My
Corsican Pines came in a basket, in little bundles not
bigger than bunches of groundsel, and in ten years they
formed a handsome sheltering wood. Certainly the Pine
babies make a far from dignified appearance the first
year ; but I am content to plant small, knowing how well
they will grow in a very few years, and how much better
an effect I shall get than by planting tall plants. Now, to
plant in this way and get a good result for all the future
life of the grove, we have not only to know the greater
trees of the northern world as distinct in kind, in
beauty of form or leaf and in height, but also in relation
to time ; and hence arises one of the questions concern-
ing good planting for the future, for which all good
planting should be.

We have much evidence how quickly woods may be
formed by planting in well-considered masses and by the
association of things of like nature, as Firs and Pines ;
and how a man even beginning after middle age may in
his own lifetime hope to see noble woods of his own
planting. If anything in the world would be enviable
by a tree lover it would be the lot of one still young,
with much poor land to plant, as he certainly could in
his own lifetime raise stately forests. Such good and
rapid results, however, can only be got by the absolute
exclusion of hares and rabbits and the still worse attacks
of young horses or grazing creatures of any sort.

Use little plants. The stock of the ordinary nursery,

Spruce Wood, Gloucestershire

70 face p. jo

Home woods 31

being in most cases grown for planting gardens and
pleasure grounds, should not be used in woodland plant-
ing. For that we must go to the forest nursery, which
will give us young and healthy seedlings, the best for all
purposes of planting. One or two instances of this may
convince the planter of the gain of getting very young
trees. In planting a field of Larch, some of the plants re-
ceived were so very small that the men put them thickly in
lines at one side of the field (in stock as it were) to allow
them to get bigger. Left there and forgotten, they grew
much better than the regularly set-out plants. In another
case of planting a field of Corsican and Scotch Pines,
mainly small plants, some parts of the field were planted
with larger ones, about a yard high, which happened to
be in the place, where they stood too close. While the
little trees never failed, about two-thirds of those of the
larger size perished the first season. Thus will be seen
at once the advantage of always getting very young trees
in all planting of woodland.

Time of planting. Where we plant good trees in
a liberal way, for which there is so often room to spare
in poor ground, a plan seldom followed, but a very good
one, is that of dating the wood on a stone block, as in
the Oak wood at Althorp ; or on stout iron posts, as
in the woods near Virginia Water. It is very interesting
when examining a well-grown wood to know its age,
which may also be duly recorded in an estate book of
planting— a useful book to have on every estate where
the woods are of any extent.

A source of failure. A common source of failure with
the nobler evergreen trees is the mixed-muddle way
which is common everywhere with us, and fatal as re-
gards the evergreen wood. Planters think merely of the

32 Home woods

effect of the pudding-like masses they form at first, and
follow no principle, the planting being too often a mixture
of evergreen shrubs of the south of Europe, forest trees
of the north, and conifers of California, or any other
country, in one mass, usually uniform back and front,
and planted for size only. In nature trees have distinct
habits of growth, and some notice should be taken of
this in planting for the sake of effect or for timber. We
rarely or never see a mixture of conifers, evergreens,
and summer-leafing trees growing naturally in one place ;
the Oak and the Pine run together sometimes and, as
we go up high mountains, the Beech and the Birch,
but the association ceases eventually, and we have the
Pine on the higher hills, as we have the Oak on the plain
and the Willow in the marsh. Nothing like the inco-
herent mixture which we see in Britain is ever seen in
nature, nor should be seen in any good planting. These
remarks as regards stupid mixed plantings are not ad-
dressed to the true forester, but to the many people who,
often with good opportunities of planting, never think of
the matter from that point of view ; so that we see under
their forest evergreens the remains of flowering shrubs
and rare evergreens which are quite unfit for such asso-
ciation, but which grouped by themselves in right posi-
tions would have given a beautiful result. I do not say
that some association with summer-leafing trees is not
right in the Pine wood ; in fact, such trees often come
by themselves. Oak, Beech, and Ash in a forest country
are blown in, or in some way come uninvited and often
with good effect. Birch and Beech might even be
planted among Pines; but that way has nothing in
common with the mixing, which is so wrong, of hard-
wooded trees with Californian conifers and every con-

Home woods 33

ceivable tree that happens to fit in at first, to make a show
of size. And this is but one of the many important things
we have to think of, if our planting is to be true and
beautiful and lasting.

The beauty of the Pine-stem. A mistake running
through the whole of our planting, doing infinite harm
from an artistic and even a cultural point of view, and
as difficult to eradicate as Twitch or Bishopsweed, is the
common one of planting every precious tree we have as
an isolated specimen on the grass. I have seen a Monte-
rey Pine, a tree about seventy years old and in fine health,
but instead of the stem, such as a Pine should show,
its huge branches were massed close to the ground and
one could scarcely get under it, thus offering an immense
target for rain, or wind, or wind-carried sleet. It grew
in grass as usual, and that it throve in the climate of the
district was clear from its healthy foliage ; but the timber
was very much less than it would have been if the tree
had been planted rightly, for, instead of being (as in
a forest Pine) massed in the stem, it was wasted in twenty
great arms. In this way of planting, trees like the Scotch
Fir, the Cedar of Lebanon, and the Monterey Pine
grow too much to branches, not losing their lower limbs
but pushing them out until they become the enemies of
the main stem, whence it is we have so many trees
thrown down by storms, as well as other evil results
from the practice.

Other Pines, like the Columbian Fir (Abies nobth's),
never assume this bushy habit but go up like arrows,
their lower branches getting weaker as the tree grows
higher; massed together, as in nature, the trees lose
their lower branches quicker. When the bare stem is
seen, many who have not seen the trees in their native

D

34 Home woods

home attribute it to loss of health, whereas they are
merely throwing off tired branches for which they have
no further need. In nearly all forest trees, and Pines
more than any, it is a distinct gain in beauty to show
the stem. The trees escape the wind, and do not suffer
from exposure or from being set on grass, which during
summer or light rainfall takes all the moisture. They
shelter each other, and the mast-like stems are sufficient
to uphold them in any storm. What is the remedy for
the mistake so often made in planting Pines ? Certainly
grouping the trees closer together, and so gaining those
stately columns, good effect, and timber. If there is not
room enough to group each kind separately, that is
no reason why different Pines should not be grouped
together.

False distinctions. Much of the time and energy of
writers is wasted in the attempt to draw distinctions
where none exist, ranging from the abysmal profundities
of Kant to the last issue of some publication dealing
with the simple facts of country life. Attempts are made
to set up distinctions in kind where it is only a question
of degree. We have the table hen and the exhibition
hen, which proved so distressing a bird to Sir Henry
Thompson ; we have men endeavouring to separate
garden from exhibition Roses ; critics who write of all
sorts of ' schools ' in art instead of showing the harmony
with nature of all true work in art ; and now books of
woodcraft show the same tendency and, instead of being
simple and clear, use a jargon of German and bad English
as pedantic as possible. The tree growing by itself is
discussed on ' arboricultural principles ' ; trees growing
in a wood are discussed under another set of principles
called 'sylvicultural '. This and much like talk is very apt

Home woods 35

to confuse. Some of the noblest trees for beauty as well
as size are in the forests, and I would much rather have
Oaks from the forest of Marly or Bercy in the pleasure
garden than any merely bushy tree usually grown there-
in. The greater Pines of the Northern Forest should be
grown as they are found in natural forests generally,
that is to say, close enough together to get the true form
and stature of the central stem.

Firs close planted. I have lately measured some Spruce
Fir in a German forest — stems of 70 to 80 feet high, and
not more than 3 to 4 feet apart. In some cases they
even stood closer. Every tree must have room to grow
if it is to attain a useful size, but our way of planting
conifers, in which each tree must stand apart, is silly.
In the mountains of Auvergne, I have seen fine trees of
the Silver Fir within a yard of each other. Doubtless
climate, tree, and soil suited each the other, as they
always should do if we seek good results from woodland
planting ; but these instances tell us that the true way is
in massing trees of this nature.

D 2

CHAPTER IV

THE GREATER EVERGREEN TREES OF THE NORTHERN
FOREST

I HAVE shown reasons for the planting of evergreen
woods: for shelter, profit, use of poor lands, rapid
growth, varied uses, and for their beauty in the land-
scape. The man who does not love the woodland and
the tree will never make a beautiful country place ; for
the questions which cluster round the house itself are
as nothing compared with what we have to face if we
wish to get the best the ground may give us. We have
now to think of the chief question in planting, the choice
of stately and first-rate trees ; kings of the northern ever-
green forest they should be. From many points of view,
the planting of evergreen woods is an important one,
and, from the number of merely new trees in lists, the
question is not always simple. We have a few hardy
evergreen trees which everybody plants, but so many
trees have been introduced, possessing good qualities
in their own country, that people are apt to plant things
which can never become in Britain timber trees of any
value, however well they may look in nursery rows, or
isolated in the pleasure ground with perhaps a dozen
loads of good loam under each tree. The mountains of
Europe give us the best trees for our islands, needing
no special soil or care, and with them thrive the trees
of northern Asia, and even southern Europe and Asia
Minor, with its noble Cedars of Lebanon. There is

Greater evergreen trees of Northern Forest 37

always a gain in having a tree from a like climate. If
we go to California and warm regions for our ever-
greens we may make mistakes, and costly ones. There
are certainly fine trees in the North Pacific region ; but
for the evergreen woodland we ought to take first the
hardiest trees of regions like our own.

We have to steer clear of many pitfalls made for us
by catalogues in giving pompous Latin names to mere
' states ' or slight varieties of each tree ; of fine trees
not hardy save in favoured spots, as the Indian Deodar;
of false names like Retinospora ; of failures like Crypto-
meria ; of trees starting too early in our spring ; of
weedy, poor trees like the western Arbor-vitae, and to
whole lists of poor varieties of such trees, rubbish for
woodland, and little better for the pleasure ground.

Useless evergreen trees. Much has been spent and
wasted in planting these, owing to the excitement over
the Wellingtonia and other Pacific coast trees. For
these, people almost ceased to plant the best native
trees and the really good Pines for our land, the main
result in many cases, except in the most favoured places,
being ugly sticks often half dead. The effect, also, is
so ugly in what is called the ' Pinetum ' that people
might well be tired of planting conifers. But the true
' Pinetum J is the Pine wood, where no tree should ever
enter which is not as hardy as the Scotch Fir or the
Yew.

The Deodar Cedar is unfit for the woodlands of our
country, being tender. The Redwood of California,
which is a fine tree in its own country and grows
pretty well with us, is injured almost every year even
in southern parts of England, though it may thrive as
a close wood. Araucarias should never be planted in

38 The greater evergreen trees

any woodland work, nor should any merely curious
conifer, and many absurdities are described in cata-
logues serving to obscure the value of the really noble
Pines.

Design. It is important to get out of our heads skimpy
ideas of planting, wrong in effect for shelter, timber, and
simplicity of working. North or south, east or west, we
often see that, if any planting of evergreen trees is done
at all, it is done in narrow skirtings to roads, so that the
winds cut through the line in an instant, whereas when
trees are massed rightly the edge of the wood impedes
the prevailing wind, and within fifty yards the trees are
in shelter and warmth. The best way to plant is to take
a piece of ground which is not valuable for arable or
any other use, and plant it as wood. If, as often occurs,
there are few or no evergreen trees among the hard-
wood trees of the place, it is all the better if we can
place an evergreen wood in the midst of Oak and like
woods ; birds can get more protection in such woods,
as in estates with hard woods only it is too easy for the
poacher to see the pheasants clear against the sky on
the leafless trees. All planting of these trees should be
in masses, bold groups or ' clouds ' on the hills. It is
not a question of space ; an acre or two rightly planted
would be better than miles of the mean skirtings to
roads called ' plantations ', and the ugly round clumps
with which so many country places are disfigured.

The following are the greater trees for the evergreen
wood for our islands. It should be understood that the
trees are considered wholly from the point of view of
the planter in Britain.

The Corsican Pine. The tallest Pine of Europe, reach-
ing 160 feet high in Calabria and Corsica, and of very

To face p. 3$

Corsican Pines, rightly grown

? s %*•

of the Northern Forest 39

rapid growth in our country, as I have raised woods of
it in ten years. The tree shows some variety of habit
and even foliage, and, if one liked to do anything so
foolish, one could give Latin names to several forms
found in one wood. The Calabrian variety has been
named as a species by some, and it is a more vigorous
tree in poor soils. Plant small; two or three-year-old
plants do best.

The White Pine (Pinus strobus). One of the noblest
forest trees of the northern world, reaching a height of
over 170 feet, with a girth of trunk of 30 feet. Owing to
the cutting of the woods in its native land, it is seldom
seen in its fine form in the settled parts. It forms dense
forests in Newfoundland and Canada, and westwards
and southwards along the mountains. In our country
it thrives best in gritty and free soils. I find it perishes
when growing on some clays, and this is not owing to
any want of hardiness, as it is as hardy as any northern
tree.

The Cluster Pine (P. pinaster). A rapid-growing Pine
of pleasant colour, 70 feet or more high, native of the
Mediterranean region, often by the seashore, and useful
in our country near the sea, but often thriving in inland
places, best in free and sandy soils. It is used much in
France to aid in fixing sand dunes.

The Scotch Pine. Our native Pine, and, when old, one
of the most beautiful. It is of very wide distribution in
northern, Arctic, and mountain regions, and also on the
mountains of Italy and Greece. The Riga variety is a
more erect and stronger grower. A number of varieties
are mentioned in books and catalogues, and some hy-
brids, compact and dwarf varieties, including variegated
ones, none of any value for the woodland. This Pine

40 The greater evergreen trees

sows itself in some heaths, and is rapidly spreading in
that way in some districts.

The Monterey Pine (P. insignis). A grass-green Pine
of California, often thriving in the southern and western
parts of our country, but in inland places occasionally
suffering in hard winters, and therefore not good for
general planting, except on high ground. The tree is
so distinct and beautiful that it should not be forgotten
in the southern and milder shore lands.

The Swiss Pine (P. Cembra). A noble alpine Pine
of distinct, close-growing form, a slow grower in our
country, as well as in its native land on the mountains
of central Europe or in Siberia, where it attains a maxi-
mum height of 100 feet. This is a tree of rare beauty
and its wood of fine quality ; its slow growth at first does
not lessen its great value.

The Austrian Pine. One of the hardiest trees ; dis-
tinct in form and colour, attaining a maximum height of
nearly 100 feet; of close, dense growth when young,
thriving on calcareous, poor, stony or rocky ground and
on clay soils (but not on poor sands). Owing to its close
habit it nourishes the ground beneath it so well with its
fallen leaves that it is self-supporting and gives precious
shelter. It is often planted in Britain, but generally set
out in the usual ' specimen way ', so that it is slower in
taking its true form than when grouped as Pines should
be. The final form of the tree is very picturesque, with
a free open head ; giving valuable wood, however massed
it should be thinned so as to allow of its full develop-
ment. In books this Pine is sometimes classed as a
variety of the Corsican Pine, but, from a planter's point
of view, the trees are distinct in colour and form and
growth.

of the Northern Forest 41

The Cedars of Lebanon and Atlas. Planters should not
forget that it is to the Cedars of the northern mountains
they must look— the Lebanon and Atlas Cedars, which
have been proved so hardy and so well fitted for our
country. In books Cedrus atlantica is considered dis-
tinct enough to merit a separate name, but, having seen
the trees on their native mountains, I think the Atlas
Cedar is only a form of the Lebanon Cedar (C. Libani).
The seed of the tree is plentiful in Asia Minor and
North Africa, and it ought to be grown in forest nurseries
and offered among the other forest trees. The seed
being as easy to raise as that of any other conifer, we
should not buy the tree in the ( specimen ' state, but in
the smaller state, a much safer way. These Cedars
should be grown as forest trees, and they will take high
place in the ranks of such.

The Common Yew (Taxus). Our best native evergreen,
though neglected by gardeners as a tree, must not be
left out in planting evergreen trees, as it is such a wel-
come shelter for game, and when old very beautiful with
its finely coloured stem and everlasting verdure. In
woods, too, we have the best chance of growing it out
of harm's way, as no asp of tropic jungle is more deadly,
and thousands of precious living creatures have been
killed by Yew. Plant as far in the centre of woods as
may be. Keep all old trees with reverent care. The
lower branches of Yews should be cut off where there
is any danger of stock reaching them.

Lawson's Cypress (Cupressus Lawsoniana). A tall and
beautiful tree of the Pacific coast of North America,
zoo feet high, and very free in our climate. Unfortu-
nately, owing to propagation from cuttings instead of in
the natural way from seed, the tree often breaks into

42 The greater evergreen trees

a number of stems, which interferes with its natural
habit and beauty. It varies very much into what is
called ' sports '. There are a number of fastigiate forms,
but they are malformations, and only the natural wild
form raised from seed should be planted.

The Canoe Cedar (C. nootkatensis). A distinctly beauti-
ful tree, hardy, a native of the northern Pacific coast,
and with even more than the grace of the Italian Cypress.
It thrives in cold, ordinary soils, and it is a pleasure to
see it at all seasons. In its native land there is a copious
rainfall, and it thrives in wet districts in our country.
Syn. Thuiopsis borealis.

The Great Japanese Cypress (C. obtusd). A beautiful
evergreen tree of the mountains of Japan, better known
in our gardens under the wrong name of Retinospora.
It grows nearly 100 feet high, and in its own country it
is much used to form avenues. It has many varieties
with Latin names, but few of them of real value as
they grow old, and these varieties and their Latin names
and propagation by cuttings will no doubt do their sorry
work in blinding us to the value of the wild tree. Only
plants from seed are worth planting.

The Douglas Fir. The most valuable evergreen tree
introduced for timber production, and now a common
tree. It should be planted in sheltered valleys or woods,
but will live in all soils ranging from light sands and
gravels to moderately stiff clay. There are several
varieties of the tree, that known as the Colorado variety
being considered the hardiest but not the best grower.
Its growth in Ireland and Scotland is very fine.

The Sitka Spruce (Abies sitchensis). In places where
this Spruce thrives it is a beautiful tree with bluish
silvery-grey leaves. In a damp climate, where the soil

of the Northern Forest 43

is deep and moist, it grows into a noble tree, but in dry
soils it is poor. It comes from a very cold part of the
northern world, and is a precious tree for Britain, and
among the best evergreen forest trees.

The Rocky Mountain Spruce (Picea pungent). A valuable
tree for this country, as it is very hardy, quick in growth,
and withstands exposure in high-lying places. It is most
generally known in gardens by its variety glaucay which
is perhaps the most silvery of Spruces, the whole tree
being like a cone of frosted silver. This Spruce is largely
raised from seed in order to select from the seedlings
these silvery varieties, and it is the normal form which
is of less value for gardens that is so useful for exposed
plantations. I find this tree very good in poor stony
ground.

The Norway Spruce. One of the most planted of trees,
and yet often failing in the southern and dry counties,
except near water or in wet bottoms. It is a mistake to
plant it on high exposed places or in very dry soil, but
over a large area of the western country it is valuable,
and in Ireland and Scotland. Its failure in the southern
counties is owing to their low rainfall.

The Silver Fir. A noble tree of the mountains of
central Europe, often planted in Britain, and growing
well over 100 feet high in many places. It was the first
of the Silver Firs planted in Britain, and one of the best.
When young it grows well in the shade of other trees,
and it is an excellent tree to plant for shelter, as it will
grow in the most exposed situations, and in peaty as
well as most soils, but it is slow to start growth in some
clay soils.

The Giant Arbor-vitae (Thuja gigantea). A tall and
noble tree, fine in stature and form, hardy in our country,

44 The greater evergreen trees

thriving in ordinary soils, and a free and rapid grower,
even without the special attention in the way of soils
such conifers often receive. Avoid cutting or sucker
plants. It attains in its own country a maximum height
of 150 feet, and its wood is fine-grained and good. N.W.
America, finest on the Columbia river. Syn. T. Lobbii.

The Puget Sound Fir (Abies grandis}. A stately tree of
over 200 feet high, with dark-green cones 2 to 3 inches
long, and dark shining leaves, white below. Hardy and
free in various parts of Britain ; best in moist soils, and
promises to be a valuable tree for our islands. N.W.
America.

The Columbia Fir (Abies nobilis). A mountain tree
200 to 300 feet high, with silvery foliage, tipped with
bright green as the young growths start in spring, and
set with handsome brown cones 5 to 7 inches long. It
is hardy in this country save in cold low lands towards
the north, and when sheltered and well suited as to soil
it thrives remarkably. Shelter is of importance, for the
tops of vigorous young trees are not infrequently blown
away in a gale, if too much exposed. They seed freely
in this country, and soon make timber. The finest trees
in this country are upwards of 80 feet high, with a girth
measure of 8 feet. Oregon.

The Crimean Fir (Abies Nordmanniana). A beautiful
tree of 100 to 150 feet, with rigid branches, dense dark-
green foliage, and large cones. It is hardy and of rapid
growth when well placed, the new shoots making and
ripening their growth within a few weeks. It will grow
in almost any soil, and even in dry sandy places where
many Firs refuse to thrive ; but in such soil it is par-
ticularly liable to a blight like the woolly aphis which
finally destroys the trees. This pest follows the tree

The Swiss Pine (P. Cembra) at home

To face P. 44

of the Northern Forest 45

so persistently in some places that many planters have
abandoned its use. Caucasus and Crimea.

The Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana}. A graceful,
hardy tree on the hills and mountains of N.E. America,
giving somewhat of the effect of the Eastern Cypress in
Italy, and in our islands a good sheltering tree, thriving
in the poorest of soils and rocky places.

The Hemlock Spruce (Tsuga canadensis). A tree some-
times over 100 feet high with a diameter of 4 feet in
the trunk, inhabiting cold northern regions from Nova
Scotia to Minnesota. This tree has been much planted
in England, but it has not attained the stature and form
that it shows in Canada. But it should not be left out in
any varied planting of evergreen forest trees, choosing
for it cool soils or river banks.

The Western Hemlock Spruce (T. Mertensiana). A
noble tree of graceful habit, a larger tree than the
Canadian Hemlock Spruce— sometimes 200 feet high,
with a trunk diameter of 10 to 12 feet. A native of
Puget Sound, British Columbia to Alaska, and coming
from such fog-moistened regions hardy in our island
climate. The foliage, as graceful as a Fern, is of a lus-
trous green, and silvery white beneath. It is a tree
precious for our country.

The Yellow Pine (Pinus ponderosa). A noble tree
covering a vast area in its own land, where it thrives
under a variety of conditions and in many soils. Fully
grown trees attain a height of nearly 250 feet, with
stems upwards of 6 feet in diameter. In this country it
has not been much planted except as a pleasure-ground
object, though it grows well in most parts of Britain, is
hardy, and of rapid growth. It thrives in free and gritty
soils, and is at home in poor Surrey sands where few of

46 The greater evergreen trees

our native trees would thrive. Its appearance is very
distinct, with a sturdy trunk and few branches, coming
in regular whorls, and drooping with age. Tried on
poor limestone soil at Grignon in France, it has out-
stripped the Corsican Pine, and promises to be one of
the best timber trees.

Jeffrey's Pine (Pinus Jeffreyi) — better known in this
country — is a mountain form of P. ponderosa, not quite
so rapid in growth, but more resistant to the Pine
beetles and certain diseases which attack the Yellow
Pine.

The White Fir (Abies concolor). Perhaps the most
valuable of the American Firs, it is remarkable for
vigorous growth and resistance to heat and drought.
It reaches a height of 200 feet and upwards, with a
trunk diameter of 6 feet, a narrow pointed crown, and
spreading frond-like masses of foliage. Brought to this
country about forty years ago, there are trees already
upwards of 60 feet high with a girth of 7 to 9 feet. It
is a variable tree, with several forms — Abies lasiocarpa
with an erect habit and slender stem, and A. Lowiana
with a stouter trunk and more spreading in its outline.
All, however, grow freely on well-drained land, in places
not too liable to spring frosts. Along the coast of New
England it has been freely planted in seashore gardens,
and some of the finest trees are to be found fully ex-
posed to the fierce winds sweeping in from the Atlantic
— winds which frequently drench the trees with salt
spray without any ill effects. It should be tried under
similar conditions on our coasts, and deserves considera-
tion as a forest tree. Syn. Abies Parsonsiana. N.W.
America.

Caucasian Spruce (P. orientalis). An elegant tree with

of the Northern Forest 47

somewhat the appearance of the Norway Spruce, but it
is a smaller-growing tree with much shorter leaves and
branches, of denser growth, and is of a deep green, very
hardy, and thrives best in moist soils. Massed it forms
a fine shelter.

Tiger-tail Spruce (P. polita). A Japanese tree which,
judging by the trees in various parts of the country, is
one that will have a future in these islands. It is a
handsome tree of rigid pyramidal outline, and with
leaves the stiffest and sharpest-pointed of all. It stands
exposure well, and is a tree for high windy places.

P. Morinda. No other Spruce has such gracefully
drooping branches as this Himalayan tree, and it is
worthy of a place among the finest trees, but it must
have a deep, moist soil, more heavy than light, and the
position not too sheltered. Under these conditions it
flourishes in the bleakest parts of the eastern counties,
where are some of the finest trees of it. Syn. P.
Smithiana.

Bhotan Pine (P. excelsa). A handsome tree, much
planted, with long, slender, drooping leaves and pendent
cones. It is a native of the Himalayas, and of very wide
distribution in Asia. In our country it thrives in warm
and well-drained soils.

Cascade Mountains Fir (Abies amabilis). A tall massive
tree with deep blue-green foliage and dark purple cones.
It grows rather slowly with us, the tallest tree being
not much above 40 feet, whereas in the mountains of
the western American States it attains a maximum
height of 250 feet with a trunk 4 to 6 feet in diameter.
It is a noble tree, the branches sweeping down in grace-
ful curves, clothed with dense foliage silvery on the
under-sides of the leaves, and during May conspicuous

48 The greater evergreen trees

for the fine red catkins of the male flowers. It is still
a scarce tree in this country, and difficult to get true to
name and on its own roots. The wood is light, hard,
finely grained, and of a pale brown. British Columbia
and southward to Oregon.

The White Spruce (Picea alba). A graceful tree of
pyramidal habit in its early state, broadening and round-
ing off with age, while the slender branchlets are finely
pendulous. It grows best in cool and moist places, upon
the banks of lakes and streams, decreasing in size and
vigour southward where exposed to heat and drought,
which it cannot endure. It is abundant in Canada,
reaching a height of 150 feet, and is much used in the
manufacture of paper-pulp and for fitting interiors. The
mature wood is light and hard, finely grained, and readily
stained or polished. Syn. P. canadensis.

The Big Tree (Sequoia giganted). At first I intended
to omit this tree from the greater trees of the Northern
Forest, because of its failure in many pleasure grounds.
Is this not largely our own fault in placing the tree?
The best thing to do would be to give it a fair trial
as a forest tree in sheltered woodland valleys, or, where
there are none of these, to plant in a sheltered wood,
and always among trees and cover of some kind which
would help to keep the sun out and the ground cool.
Coming from one of the finest climates, with a constant
sun and gentle Pacific breezes, the least we can do with
it is to take care to place it in the best woodland con-
ditions. We should in such ways give it all the chance
of growth our climate affords, and get rid of the toy-tray
look of our garden lawns which arises from sticking
such trees about in them. The fact that over much of
the northern and midland country we may not hope for

of the Northern Forest 49

success with it should be another reason for growing
the tree where the woodland conditions are favourable.

The idea that these trees should be planted far apart
is wrong. They should, like other forest trees, be planted
young and close, say 8 feet, with a Larch between every
two trees, to be thinned in after life without losing the
canopy overhead. That makes the whole of the trees
about 4 feet apart. Later on they must be thinned, but
never so much as we are told in books on conifers. The
mutual shelter the trees get, the shade for the roots, the
warmth and the deliverance from old weary branches
which garden planters are always grieving over the loss
of, but which the tree in nature always gets rid of, help
in all ways. I can imagine nothing grander than a grove
of Big Trees grown in these forest ways. Eventually
the Larch or other nursing tree would have to be cut
away and the trees themselves thinned to 20 or more
feet apart according to age and size.

CHAPTER V

THE GREATER SUMMER-LEAFING TREES OF THE
NORTHERN FOREST

HOWEVER much we may rejoice in the Mountain Pine,
we are men of the plains and also the broad-leaved trees,
Oaks and Beeches and Ash. To these and to their
many allies is also given the palm of beauty for their
wondrous changes throughout the year and loveliest
colour, from the down-clad buds of the early year to the
world-splendours of the fall, when the leaves show us
how to die. To them also belongs all the most valuable
timber: but here we are concerned mostly with beauty.

Why is it that the highest beauty of our native trees
is not so evident to us as it ought to be, where there is
room to plant ? It is because of the ' dotting ' planting
and the underwood ways in woodland, which prevent
the trees from taking their stateliest forms. Then there
is the open way of planting, in which every tree stands
apart, a way that is dead against good effect and good
timber.

If this is the fate of our native trees, to be as often
planted without picturesque effect in most country
places, how much more so it is true of American and
other exotic trees, for many years planted as 'specimens'
for the pleasure ground, often being much-transplanted
trees, grafted trees, or, worse still, rare trees raised in
pots : the result of such plantings being that a tree has
not had a fair trial. Look at a transplanted Oak and

Greater summer-leafing trees of Northern Forest 51

a seedling Oak growing where the seed fell, and what
a difference in favour of the seedling tree. It is there-
fore certain that our woodland interest would be much
increased in beauty if, in the case of the finer trees, we
were to sow them where they are destined to grow as
trees. Grown from seed where they are to grow and in
not unsuitable soil, we should see quite a very different
and better result.

The Common Oak. King of the Northern Forest,
from its use, beauty, and associations, it is in all ways
the most precious of our native trees. The beauty of
the Oak is evident in many parts of our country, differ-
ing, too, according to place, its effect in the south, for
instance, not being the same as in the midlands, where
the trees are more stately though their wood is no better,
if, indeed, as good. In chase, or park, or lawn, nothing
can be finer than our picturesque sentinel Oaks ; but
one noble aspect of the tree, not so often seen with us,
is its tall forest dignity. Owing to the trees being so
often set apart, and to the underwood culture which
encourages them to branch out, we do not so often see
those superb erect trees such as may be found in the
great French forests like Fontainebleau, Marly, and
Bercy, where the Oaks are noble in stature as well as
in size, and over 100 feet high. Where Oaks are massed
in this way the effect of the lichen-silvered stems in
winter is fine, and in spring is even better, where the
ground is carpeted with Primroses and Ladies' Smocks,
Dog Violets, and Wood Hyacinths.

For the Oak the best soils are clays and cool loams,
and the iron-soaked soils so common in the Weald of
Sussex and in Kent. A deep soil is not necessary if the
subsoil is cool. Dry and poor sandy soils are against

E 2

52 The greater summer-leafing trees

the Common Oak. Happily there are large areas in
which there is the right kind of soil, and many of the
poor clays and cold, hungry loams that were broken up
in better times might now be well planted with Oak.
Nothing that the wit of man could devise pays so well
as an Oak wood in many districts of Britain. Oak will
grow very well on fine rich loams, but the best quality
is grown upon soils which, although cool, cannot rightly
be classed as good loam. In my woods, and in the dis-
trict around, the Oak is as good in quality as has ever
been cut, although the ground it grows upon is saturated
in winter and, indeed, for a great part of the year.

If we watch what goes on under a grove of Oaks after
a good year of acorns and in places not too much ex-
posed to creatures that store them away, we see a fine
vigour of growth from seed such as no other tree can
surpass. These, be it observed, are uncovered acorns,
and, seeing this, who need be afraid to take the simple
way with acorns ? A plan I have practised with success
is to scatter acorns over a field of likely ground and then
run the plough through the field to cover up the seed.
The acorns will thus be thrown into lines and protected
from the birds and other creatures during the winter.
They come freely, and, if not severely gnawed by vermin,
will be too many, but it is very easy to thin out the
weakest. The acorns should be from sound, fair-sized
trees— often an easy matter to obtain, though in the same
place we have often found a curious diversity in their
size. In districts where rabbits abound it is absolutely
necessary to wire, to a height of 3^ feet and not more
than a couple of acres at a time, as larger areas are diffi-
cult to control. If this is not done the little seedling
Oaks will be eaten down (the larger Oaks are saved

of the Northern Forest 53

by their astringency) and several years may be lost; but
even then they keep on and in good time get their heads
up. There has been much writing as to the superiority
of transplanted trees over those raised from acorns, but
this is contrary to all the facts of Nature as seen in
every Oak wood, where the trees come so freely from
seed. Among the various sound reasons for raising
Oak from acorns is its economy and simplicity. An
important point is the renewal of existing woods in
which underwood has been grown for generations ; the
Oaks scattered through these are occasionally good, but
are often spoiled by their spreading heads. As under-
wood has now ceased to be profitable and its cutting is
often a nuisance near the house, it is better to replant
the wood with Oak, in which case we shall have to use
tall saplings. I plant saplings of from 8 to 12 feet high,
and when they come from good forest nurseries I find
they succeed, but they must have been moved often
enough to secure a fibrous root.

It is a common belief that the Oak is a slow-growing
tree, and the contorted trees one sees in open places
to some extent warrant this opinion ; it is an error ; the
Oak is a rapid grower. Some ten years ago I planted
a small field with Pines— the hardiest and most rapid in
growth, some of them, like the Corsican Pine, growing
2 feet and even more a year, in favourable spots ; in the
soil brought by birds and mice a certain number of
acorns came up uninvited, and so far these have kept
their heads level with the Pines. Some years ago, too,
an interesting calculation was carried out upon my own
land on Oaks growing in underwood, recording the
growth of ten years. It showed a yearly increase of
from 5 to 7! per cent, in value.

54 The greater summer-leafing trees

Varieties and synonyms. From our point of view it is
out of the question to consider here the varieties of our
noble Oak. If from some high standpoint we look out
over any good Oak district, we may see much diversity
as regards time of leaf, colour, and even habit, and for
hair-splitting students it would not be difficult from these
minor differences to establish * varieties'. But that is
futile for our purpose.

The Durmast Oak. Botanists often class as mere
varieties, things that may be distinct from a planter's
point of view. They do not always know the living
trees, which they see as dried specimens only, and with-
out knowledge of the wood, habit, stature, and other
characteristics, which are far more essential for us than
any technical description of leaves and stamens. This
has been the fate of our Durmast Oak, as the result of
failing to keep it apart, and the confused writing relating
to our Oaks.

The Durmast Oak is one of the greatest and most
stately of European trees. Compared with the Common
Oak of our heavy Wealden lands, the stem is more erect,
more cylindrical, and while less branching produces a
greater proportion of heavy branches, which are freer
and less twisted. The foliage is easily known even at
a distance by its deeper green colour, more even distri-
bution, and greater density, while the entire tree is often
more lofty, and with a more regular outline. The leaves
are larger and hang more loosely upon their longer foot-
stalks ; they also last a little longer than those of the
Common Oak ; and saplings (particularly in sheltered
places) often keep much of their green foliage until the
new leaves come. Even bare the tree may be known
by its fuller leaf-buds, its own way of branching, and its

of the Northern Forest 55

whiter bark, and in autumn by its stalkless clusters of
acorns.

Its area is much the same as that of the Common
Oak, but, while more restricted to the north and east, it
reaches much further south as the ' White Oak ' of the
Mediterranean region, and abounds in various forms
throughout the south of Europe. The great Oak forests
of France are largely composed of Durmast Oaks,
especially the famous truffle-forests of the south-east.

But while the Common Oak is a tree of the great
plains and valleys, the Durmast Oak clings to the hills,
plateaux, and mountain spurs, ascending high enough
to be found among the Pines; not that it is hardier than
the great Oak of the plains, but because it thrives in a
drier atmosphere and poorer soils. As regards tempera-
ture there is little difference between the needs of the two,
although its more confined northern range presumably
makes the Durmast Oak less fitted to resist severe cold.

In the main the wood of the Durmast Oak is less rigid
and tough than that of the Common Oak, grown in the
plains on fertile soil and as a rule among underwood.
On the other hand, the wood of the Durmast Oak is less
knotty, is straighter in fibre, and truer in grain. It is
preferred for cabinet-work, and being of quicker growth,
straighter stem, and better adapted for growing in close
order, it is more profitable for the production of timber.

While in general not so long lived as the Oak of the
plains, its trunk is less subject to decay and from its
later leafing the tender shoots are seldom injured by
frost. Foresters also claim that it is less open to the
attacks of insect pests. In parts of the north and west,
and particularly in the Forest of Dean with its rocky
subsoil, it is abundant. But as a fact trees of it are not

56 The greater summer-leafing trees

easy to obtain, for whereas firms offer the two kinds in
their trade lists, there is hardly a grower that ever keeps
them apart or can guarantee a stock in any quantity.
The true way would be to gather one's own seed from
selected trees of the Durmast Oak, on which the acorns
ripen a few weeks later than on the other, and to plant
suitable land with Durmast Oak.

There remain the most interesting American Oaks,
a few of which in our country have been treated as
forest trees ; but the Red, the Scarlet, and the Marsh
Oaks occasionally are seen as pleasure-ground trees.
The best way, if we want to give these Oaks a fair trial,
is not to plant tall, young trees, but, if possible, sow the
acorns where the trees are to grow; and then, with care
about the choice of soils, we should be able to really test
the value of each.

The Beech. One of the kings of the Northern Forest
for beauty and stature, the Beech has this advantage
over the Oak that it grows over a much wider area in
all sorts of poor and arid situations, from northern
Greece to Denmark adorning and enriching the poorest
land— chalky downs, sandy wastes, and rocky hills. This
is a great merit in view of the vast area there is of
down country, often bare of trees, in southern England,
as well as on the poor limestone hills of Ireland and the
north country. The economic value of this tree we may
see in Bucks and the districts near, where ground
covered with Beech gives five times what it would yield
as arable. To show what a return Beech will give on
such soils we have an instance in the great Beech forest
at Lyons-la- Fore t in northern France, under conditions
of soil and climate which are much like those of our own
country ; it proves also how valuable are forests of one

of the Northern Forest 57

kind of tree when that is the one best suited to the soil.
Thus we have evidence of the great value of the Beech
in woodlands of the home counties and in the forests of
Normandy. It is commonly believed that no shrub will
grow beneath the Beech, but this is happily not true, for
the best of all our evergreens, the Holly, often grows
well of its own choice in Beech woodlands, giving a pretty
effect in them, though its growth may be less vigorous
than where more exposed. As, however, little else will
grow under Beeches, those who care for the beauty of
the wood should add groups of seedling Hollies here
and there, for the sake of the pretty evergreen under-
growth that may be seen in some of the Berkshire Beech
woods and also in Epping Forest.

A variety of the Beech has leaves of deep-bronze or
purple colour : it should be used sparingly, and I only
name it here because a certain number come true from
seed. Some which I have planted in that way promise
to take their place among forest trees, and being seed-
lings we may look forward to some variety of colour.

Loose, gravelly, and permeable soils suit the Beech
best when fed with frequent rains; stiff, moist, and
swampy soils are not so good, though we may see it
sometimes thriving in such land. The chemical nature
of the soil is immaterial, and fine Beech trees are met
with upon sand, granite grit, chalk, and light soils ; but
chalky soils as of the Chiltern Hills and South Downs
suit it best.

Stocks of young trees are usually abundant in forest
nurseries, and only upon the largest estates, or where
the soil is specially suited to the tree, is it worth while
to raise it from seed.

The Ash. For its high economic value, beauty of form,

58 The greater summer-leafing trees

and splendid endurance in northern regions, this is one
of the most precious of trees. Many an old Ash about
farm-houses is as fine in its winter form as any tree
could be; noble in height, too, when grown in high
woods. It is an excellent wood to burn and will cook
a breakfast in the open air the morning of its fall.

The Ash grows under very varied conditions, but most
commonly on the low plains and in broad river-valleys,
or smaller valleys where the soil is cool and in which
it attains its greatest size and best value. In no part of
England is the Ash so tough and so good in quality as
in the Wealden districts of Sussex, Surrey, and Kent.
In other counties where it grows more rapidly, the
wood is not so good. Cobbett, in his 'Woodlands*,
notices the storm-resisting qualities of the Ash in his
clear way, saying, ' It fears not the winds. ... I mean
that sort of power which the winds have of checking
the growth of trees, and especially those winds near the
sea-coasts. On the Hampshire coast the wind that
comes from the Atlantic is, of course, a south-west wind.
You will see the Oaks, when exposed to this wind,
sheared up on the south-west side of them as com-
pletely as if shaven with a pair of shears. The head of
the tree resembles the top of a broad quickset hedge,
which is kept sheared up in a sloping form on one side
only . . . and at the same time the everlasting flinching
of the tree and the continuance of the weight on one
side, while it is kept shaven on the other, makes the
trunk of the tree lean away from the south-west. Close
by the side of an Oak like this you will see an Ash of
equal size and height standing as upright as if in the
most sheltered valleys, and I have looked with the most
scrutinizing eye without ever having been able to dis-

of the Northern Forest 59

cover that any of the shoots pointing to the south-west
had received the smallest injury/

In forest nurseries no tree is easier to get in quantity
and fit for planting, but in places infested by rabbits it
is often difficult to establish, little trees being bitten hard
and either destroyed outright or reduced to a leprous
state. Sometimes, when planting fields of Pine, I have
found, from the seeds of Ash being blown from the
neighbouring coppices, I have got more Ash than Pines.
If taken up in good time these seedlings come in well
for planting. In planting young trees those of one to
two years are best, and in pure woods rather close
planting is best, allowing for loss through ground game ;
4 feet apart is not too close. In this way the trees
draw well up and thinning is easy, while the thinnings
are useful at all ages ; close planting need therefore be
in no way against the trees having full room to grow
at maturity.

The Larch. The best tree that ever came to us from
oversea, for its timber, and among the best trees for
beauty, is the Larch. In plantations, often ill-made and
quickly cut down, one seldom sees its best dignity ; but
if we cross the Alps and get into some natural Larch
forest, with the huge patriarchs barkless and prone
among the young trees, or see the trees in a picturesque
group beside some rapid Tyrolese river, or on the rocks
over a mountain torrent ; or as at Dunkeld, where some
of the first trees planted in our islands still stand ; then
we get some idea of its stately beauty. A native of the
cold and lovely mountains of central Europe, it is suited
for all parts of our islands, and for many kinds of soiL
The Larch is the great tree of the dry, cold regions of
the northern hemisphere, where it is found spreading

60 The greater summer-leafing trees

across Europe, Asia, and America. Avoiding the rich
soils of the plain and the shelter of the lowlands, the
Larch seeks regions that are high and cold, and is
happiest upon the wind-swept slopes of the mountain-
side.

The Larch has a great many diseases, but the one
that affects us most is that known as ' Canker ', and the
work of a fungus which has the power not only of living
on the outside but also of making its way into the heart
of the tree. The remedy is difficult, not to say im-
possible, to apply in any thorough way. Not unlikely
our mild open winters, which are so different from the
arctic winters in which the Larch usually lives, have
something to do with it, and also, owing to the great
popularity of the tree, the fashion in which it has been
planted in masses, very often absurdly close. We have
seen it planted 18 inches apart, and so weak that the
wind blew the trees over. If the disease occurs in such
conditions it spreads rapidly. The remedy is to group
the Larch more in open and airy places, and the higher
and more exposed the better. If used in our moist
valleys it is better to go in for mixed planting instead
of massing, although here and there one must mass.

There are various and rare kinds of Larch, but for
woodland work it is best to keep to the European and
Japanese kinds.

The White Willow. This is not popular with planters,
but if one wanted to make a picture of an ugly marsh or
bare stream bank where is the tree that would do it so
well in a few years ? Happily it plants itself over the
valleys and by the rivers of nearly all European coun-
tries; in the valleys of France and in our country,
especially towards the east, it is abundant. Whether

of the Northern Forest 61

we plant in woodland, wet or marshy places, or beside
pools in parks, or by the side of streams, everywhere
it helps us with good effect. The very opposite of the
Oak in its elegance, lightness, and colour, where the
tree grows well by rivers or lakes, tall trees of it may
often be seen 80 feet high and from 12 to 15 feet girth.
Where distinct effects are sought from a plantation it is
necessary to keep off browsing animals. I was once
proud of putting 1,800 Willows beside the sources of
the upper Medway, but I did not count with cows,
rabbits, and water-rats, and I do not think that more
than three of the trees survive.

If any thought of artistic planting, in the best sense
of what is right and natural, ever enters the mind of
men instead of the muddle mixtures of our day, the
White Willow will take a high place, for no ' Olive
Silvery Sirmio ' has a more beautiful effect on marsh,
river bank, or rich bottom land.

The great facility in propagation of the Willow, which
every grower takes advantage of, is against the tree and
is the cause of some writers describing it as short-lived.
Naturally, if we increase the tree from shoots we cannot
expect the same endurance and stature that we do from
seedling trees. Nature did not make the flower seed
vessels for nothing, and as the seed is plentiful we ought
always to raise the trees in that way.

Apart from its beauty, there are few trees (a fact which
is not generally known or they would be more often
planted) that are so valuable for their wood, sound trees
being precious for making cricket-bats. Large and well-
grown trees are more valuable than Oak and more
difficult to procure. The wood is very tough, easy to
work, denting and not splitting when struck, and the

62 The greater summer-leafing trees

planks are valuable for linings and for brakes because
fire resisting. If we want the best timber we should
plant by rivers ; and also it is in such situations we get
the best effects from it, since the spiral leaves go best
with other waterside trees and plants.

Like so many other trees, it is all the better for group-
ing and massing, and we get a much better effect in that
way than by mixing it up in plantations, as is so
commonly done. The fact that it does best in certain
soils should encourage us to plant it there in masses.
Better three acres of it than three trees.

As with so many trees there are varieties, but from
the forester's point of view they are no good. Botanists
class the Yellow Willow (Salix vitellina) as a variety
of the white, but from our point of view the trees are
distinct in colour, form, and size, as is at once apparent
where the two kinds are seen growing side by side.
Hybrids between the White and the Crack Willow come
nearer to our tree in dignity and effect, but when we
plant the White Willow it is better to have nothing to
do with any but the true form, always, where possible,
raised from seed ; and nurserymen who grow Willows
should take note of this need.

The Crack Willow (Salix fragilis). In much wood-
land country south of London the Crack Willow is not
very common and occurs only in an incidental sort
of way, so that little or no thought is given to it, even
by those who know the value of our native trees. But
in Essex and other counties it is often a handsome tree,
and a profitable one where its uses are known. Gilpin
asserted that the Willow did not harmonize well with
British timber trees, and some writers have reiterated
this absurd statement. Of all the trees grown in Britain,

of the Northern Forest 63

not excepting any exotic tree whatever, the Willows
rightly grown and grouped are the most beautiful. Few
who care for trees and have ever seen a Willow planta-
tion in its prime, will readily forget its beauty, any
more than the owner can forget its profit. This Willow,
which will not arrive at its fullest size and quality in
undrained land, grows freely on the slopes of exposed
hills; indeed, there are few situations in which it will
not grow, in which respect it differs from the White
Willow, which is more of a marsh and river-side tree.

As regards the Tree Willows, some of their supposed
hybrids or varieties, such as the Bedford Willow, are
worth growing both for effect and for woodland.

The White (or Dutch) Poplar. For many years in
England the fashion for coniferous trees has thrown the
planting of summer-leafing trees into the background,
and among the trees that have suffered most from this
neglect is this noble Poplar. Here and there, in getting
down from the hills in Kent or in Wiltshire, and going
near an old house or village, we see it, perhaps, rising
with a splendid dignity from the hollows and we ask
ourselves if any tree of our country is more beautiful or
stately. Too often it is solitary, whereas it is seen to
best effect in groups. In our country, in hollows and
sheltered places, there is no tree that could be used to
better effect, even in places too moist or unsuitable for
other trees. Rabbits are very destructive of young White
Poplars, and in a plantation I have made of it many tall
young trees are all gnawed round and snap off at the
base ; so that when planting the White Poplar in places
where rabbits abound it should certainly be wired for
six or seven years.

A native of our own country as well as of central and

64 The greater summer-leafing trees

western Europe, there can be no doubt about its fitness
for our climate, but as it dreads the wind, we should
avoid planting it in isolated lines, or as a wind-screen,
or on a south-east slope, and choose for it a good place
in hollows, at the bottoms of slopes, and within woods
where underwood is grown, where it can develop to the
full its fine and erect habit.

And this applies also to the greater Poplars of the
forest, — the ones we are concerned with here being the
Green, Black, Italian, and Canadian Poplars.

The Lombardy Poplar. A variety of the Black Poplar,
like all varieties of trees, it is inferior to the wild tree
in health and vigour. Many trees of it are diseased,
especially where the situation is not well chosen for
them. The Lombardy Poplar is a great tree in the
Italian valleys like those of Aosta, and there it attains
a noble vigour, as it does, also, in our own valleys, for
the deep soil beside a river is the best for it. Of late
years another handsome upright Poplar has come into
cultivation, which looks like a variety of the White
Poplar, and is said to be wild in parts of Asia, much
the same as the Lombardy Poplar is said to be wild in
Asia Minor. In forest work omit both these erect forms
of Poplars and also all the Aspens and the nursery forms
of alba, and keep to the Black Italian, the Canadian, and
the White Poplars.

The Eastern Plane. At first sight this classic tree, of
which there are many colossal examples in Eastern
countries, might be thought out of place among trees
of the Northern Forest; but it thrives even in the
London squares, and a tree that resists the winters of
London and Paris, and, worse than all, the greasy
smoke of Newcastle coals, may well take a place among

of the Northern Forest 65

the greater trees. For noble shade, rapid growth, smoke-
enduring, stately stem, and picturesque form, there is
no better tree, and among its many good qualities is
freedom from insect pests which worry most trees. It
is also easy to increase by seed, layers, or cuttings ; the
first being the best way, the seed coming freely in other
countries, if not in ours. The Eastern Plane is not
a lover of mountain land, but thrives in river-carried
soils in plain and valley. In Eastern countries it seeks
the waterside ; in our land that is not so essential, still
the best growth is always in warm valleys or alluvial
soil. Though so much in our midst, the Eastern Plane
was for many years mistaken for the Western or Ameri-
can Plane, which does not thrive in our country.

The Locust tree. From a planting and landscape-
gardening point of view this tree is precious for its fine
fresh verdure in summer and autumn, distinct in that
way from any trees, and the form of old Locust trees in
groups is very good, and quite distinct from that of other
trees.

It is of rapid growth, reaching in good soil a height
of 70 to 80 feet, with a girth of 15 feet, though such a
size is uncommon, the average height of mature trees
being 60 feet. When once established it spreads rapidly
by suckers, which thrive even in the shade of other
trees. When it can be had of fair size its wood is of
value, being very hard and lasting, free from knots,
working well, and taking a high polish; for making
posts, door and window frames, and similar uses, it is
equal to Oak, standing exposure better than most kinds
of timber. Growing freely in poor and dry soils and
fearless of drought, it is often used to plant on railway
banks in Europe, and has even proved its value in fixing

F

66 The greater summer-leafing trees

shifting sandbanks along the Rhone, Danube, and other
rivers.

The Chestnut. Among the noblest trees of the Northern
Forest for its beauty and dignity even in our cold north,
for use as food for various peoples, and for its wood.
It is a tree of the sandy and granitic hills of central and
southern Europe, the Caucasus, and North Africa, living
to a great age and often, even in our own country,
reaching great size and beauty, as on the terrace at
Shrubland and many other places. It does best in free
warm loams or sandy soils, and, like most of the other
forest trees, it grows much straighter timber when close
together than when isolated as it is so often in our
country ; its effect is good, however, in either case, and
old single trees are often beautiful. Its slighter wood
is the best of all for poles, fencing, and trellis-work;
even young growths split up are very enduring, and
hence the common use of the tree in France, especially
about old houses, for trellis-work against walls. The
mean and ugly modern way of wiring a wall with
galvanized wire is not so good as the old fashion of
trellising with split Chestnut, often common as under-
wood in the very places where the wire is used. In
forming a pergola, if we make our pillars of brick or
Oak, and our main timbers of Oak or Larch, it is the
best wood to form the smaller divisions, by which we
mean rent Chestnut made from underwood growth.
Chestnut wood is best when cut in the young and
growing state, as old trees are apt to become shaky.

Fine as the tree is in parts of our own country, it
does not attain to its greatest size on the northern side
of the Alps ; not till we have passed the mountain chain
which separates Italy and Greece from central Europe

of the Northern Forest 67

do we see it in all its strength. On the southern slopes
of this mountain chain, much finer trees than any in
England or France begin to appear, and as the traveller
goes southward he finds the Chestnut still increasing
in size and beauty towards southern Italy and Sicily.
There, in the lower girdle of woods, Cork trees and
Evergreen Oaks prevail, often growing out of the lava ;
but in a higher zone of this woody girdle, at an eleva-
tion of between 3,000 and 4,000 feet, the Chestnut is the
great tree. The elevation and the soil (consisting chiefly
of ashes in an impalpable powder) suit it well, trees in
that region being of gigantic growth, numbers of them
far above the average size of the forest trees of Europe.
The Chestnut will grow well on sandy or brashy slopes
where Oak or Pine would fail.

The Hornbeam. This beautiful tree is one of the
neglected children of the woods. Compared with some
countries we have a limited tree flora, and it is therefore
remarkable that any of our own trees should be so
neglected by planters as the Hornbeam is.

It is a native of the southern parts of England, but not
of Ireland or the north, and it inhabits a vast region in
central and northern Europe and Asia. It is said to
like a clay soil, but judging by its rarity in the heavy
Wealden country south of London, it does not seem to
like a compact soil, while it is abundant at Epping, on
more open soil. Some coolness of soil is no doubt
necessary to it. Free sandy loams suit it better than the
compact soils of the Weald, nor does it care for very hot
ground, any more than for marsh lands, or those of
a peaty nature.

The finest Hornbeams seldom exceed 70 feet in
height, with about the same spread of branch and a stem

F i

68 The greater summer-leafing trees

of 6 to 8 feet round. The natural form of the tree is
often spoiled by pollarding. It is almost free from insect
pests, resists the roughest winds, yields a grateful shade
in summer, and is so hardy as not to fear the sharpest
spring frosts. In northern Europe the Hornbeam is
commonly found fringing the great Beech forests, in
low-lying land where that tree is hardly secure in early
spring.

The Wych or Mountain Elm. In this we have a tree
of our own land and one of dignity and beauty, better
seen with us than in any other country, though it occurs
also in the northern parts of Europe and Asia. It is so
abundant in Scotland and the north country as to bear
the name of Scotch Elm, and though less common south
of the Tweed, there are Elms in many parts of the
country remarkable for their stature and picturesque
form. The stiff outline and tapering column of the Field
Elm gives place to a massive trunk often of vast girth,
breaking into great limbs which are larger and wider
spreading and carry a more massive crown of deep
green, which usually falls in the autumn a little sooner.
The branches are more or less drooping, falling into
free and graceful forms rather than the trim roundness
of many trees.

In Yorkshire it reaches its highest point in Britain —
1,300 feet, and this moderate record is distanced by the
Field Elm, which rises to 1,500 feet amid the hills of
Derbyshire. In the mountain forests of Switzerland and
Germany it attains an elevation of 3,000 feet or a little
more, but it is nowhere a high mountain tree, choosing
rather the lower slopes and the steep moist banks
through which the moisture from above finds its way to
the rivers.

of the Northern Forest 69

While of fine effect in groups, the Wych Elm is not
a good tree for mixed woods, where its spread of growth
makes it a bad neighbour. The growth of young trees
is very rapid, the long annual shoots being so flexible
as to resist the fiercest storms and make it one of the
best trees for wind-swept shores and exposed places.
It is much less apt to fracture than the Field Elm,
thriving well as a hedgerow tree and much less prolific
of suckers. On poor land it is short-lived and not worth
growing, and it fails completely on dry gravel or stiff
clays, though it grows fairly well upon chalk and lime-
stone. Rich alluvial soils suit it best and account for
its majestic beauty in our parks and beside water ; for
though not classed as a water-side tree, some of the
finest examples of Wych Elms are seen near water, the
boughs always weeping in old trees which lean grace-
fully in all directions when grouped.

The Field Elm. The Field Elm is the most stately
tree in the plains and valleys of Britain and western
Europe, and one of the most frequent, owing to its easy
increase and rapid growth, but one that in our country
should never be planted, as it commonly is, in avenues,
beside roads, or near houses and out-buildings. In such
places it is much better to have firmly-rooted trees like
the Ash, Beech, Oak, and Pine. With the Elm there is
always the danger, even in fine weather, of boughs
falling with fatal consequences to men or animals, and
there is the disaster which results from heavy rain-storms
and floods sweeping over the country, desolating whole
valleys, and glutting the market with the trees blown
down, so that fair prices are not realized. Of its value
there can be no question, but the right place for the
Elm is the heart of the wood, or in alluvial or free soils

70 The greater summer-leafing trees

and loams, where one gets the best results, and it is
quite out of harm's way. As a forest tree we should get
its strength expressed in a bolder way than when iso-
lated as it so often is, and it is also out of danger in
groups in parks like Spetchley.

Though often low in price owing to the frequent falls
of trees during storms, the wood of the Field Elm has
good and varied uses, and may be and is often employed
for purposes which generally the Oak is thought best
for, as, for example, flooring and weather-boarding, being
of better quality than that of the Mountain Elm.

The Elm is one of the most prolific of trees, scattering
its seed freely, and therefore it is important in all cases
of forest plantation to see that the trees come from seed,
as the Elm suckers very freely, and there is the danger
of getting suckers instead of seedlings. For this purpose
good seedling trees of 3 to 4 feet high should be used.
The rotation maturity of the Elm as a forest tree is
from 80 to 100 years, at which age it will have attained
the dimensions that fit it for most usages. There is no
merit and no profit in letting it get broken-backed and
rotten to the heart as we see it about London.

No family has such a number of varieties as the Elm
and none we stand less in need of. After our own two
large native Elms, the smooth Elm, the American Elm,
and the Rock Elm are the most worthy of a place in our
plantations.

The Sycamore Maple. A beautiful northern tree, for-
gotten often by planters, perhaps by reason of its freedom
to spring up from self-sown seed. So we often see it
in a crowded state in shrubberies, and its fine form and
stature is only revealed when we stand before such trees
as those at Knole and at Penshurst. In many districts

of the Northern Forest 71

of our country, where the soil is free and contains varied
mineral constituents, like much of Ireland, Wales, and
Scotland, the Sycamore increases rapidly ; but in nature
it does not often, like the Oak and other trees, form pure
woods, being often mixed with the mountain trees like
Beech and Hornbeam, with which it has more in common
as to area and soil. It loves diversified country more
than the heavy soils of the Weald, and withstands storms
and sea-winds very well, growing high in the Alps of
Europe and Asia, and proving the best of summer-leafing
trees for our storm-swept shores.

The tree has long been valued for its many uses, and
had it been more widely planted, the woods on many
estates would have gained in value.

It seeds so early and so abundantly, and the seedlings
come up so thickly in woods, that the French foresters
have come to regard it as the only tree likely to prove
dangerous as a weed in a forest.

Numbers of large Sycamores are now used in York-
shire and Lancashire, and the finer butts are frequently
sold at high prices and carried hundreds of miles.

The Sycamore does well close-planted, increases very
fast in trunk volume, equals the Oak, Ash, or Elm in
value up to middle age, and after that exceeds most
other trees in value.

There are several distinct forms— the common green-
leaved kind, the purple-leaved with dark-green leaves
and purplish-red veins and footstalks. The purple
variety is common in Scotland, and is, if anything, the
most vigorous grower of the four. All succeed in well-
nigh any soil or situation, north and south, but they
grow best in deep moist land if not water-logged,
moisture at the root being of more importance than

72 The greater summer-leafing trees

a rich soil. Fine trees are none the less found in high
and exposed situations on dry rocky soils, and however
much exposed, such trees are rarely injured by gales.
The Sycamore is more abundant in the north of England,
in Scotland, and in Wales, than in the south country.

Among the kinds of Maples which have been tried
the best for our country would seem to be the Norway
Maple ; but it is a large family and some Maples may in
time be found worthy of the name of finest trees for our
country.

The Birch. This is not among the most important trees
for the high forest, and as it often sows itself in our
woods we need trouble ourselves less about it, except
where beauty is concerned. The effect of the large
Birches, grown in pure woods of them in North Germany,
is one of the most beautiful of woodland effects.
Among the greater, or tree Birches, after our own
(including its varieties or allies), are the Canoe Birch;
Paper Birch, a forest tree of northern America, which
is hardy in Britain ; the River Birch, also a tall tree of
northern America ; the Sweet Birch (Betula lenta), the
Yellow Birch, sometimes 100 feet high.

The Maidenhair tree (Ginkgo biloba). From whatever
point of view regarded, this is one of the most mysterious,
beautiful, and distinct of hardy trees. True the tree is
common enough in the Far East, where it is said to have
spread from China to Japan with the Buddhist faith many
centuries ago, and is now frequent in temple gardens
and valued for its fruit. Eastern travellers also tell of
Ginkgoes measuring up to 40 feet round and of a great
age, to be seen here and there in the interior of Northern
China, but these are all under cultivation, and if yet
existing as a wild tree it must be amid the mountain

of the Northern Forest 73

fastnesses of Mongolia and Manchuria, the vegetation
of which remains in a great measure unknown.

The Ginkgo is beautiful at all seasons in its erect and
graceful habit, with widely-spaced limbs at first rising
but when mature gently drooping in wide spreading
curves. Its appearance is always impressive, the more
so in early autumn, when the entire tree takes a golden
tinge. When old it sometimes exceeds TOO feet in
height, with a trunk several feet in diameter covered
with rough grey bark, deeply fissured. The flowers are
not showy, but the fruits, borne freely upon fertile trees,
are conspicuous and like a small yellow plum, consist-
ing of a pulpy evil-smelling envelope of rancid flavour,
surrounding a sweetish kernel like that of the Almond
and not unpleasant to taste.

Hardy throughout the south of Britain, its growth is
at first rapid when under the best conditions, but it is
long in reaching maturity, and even the oldest plants in
Europe have yet to attain their maximum growth.

When a tree is rare or uncommon it often gets into
a staggy state in the nursery, and its increase by layers
or cuttings is also against success. We can never get
a fine tree in that way, and cutting propagators have
done much harm to forest trees. There is not the
slightest need for these practices, because, apart from
the abundance of seed yielded by the tree in its own
country, it seeds freely in the south of Europe. A hin-
drance to success is placing the tree isolated on Grass
(which gets all the moisture) or in a hungry shrubbery.
The conditions to ensure success are above all things to
get healthy seedling trees, not too large, and for position
choose a vale in a sheltered wood ; put enough plants in,
i. e. do not depend on one or two trees, but plant a bold

74 The greater summer-leafing trees

group or colony, so that one can take choice of the
strongest as they grow up, putting Larch or other trees
between them at first to keep the ground cool, though
these can be removed in due time.

The Bald Cypress. This beautiful hardy tree is in
our country too often treated as ( ornamental ' only, and
frequently ill-placed at that, so that in many country
places usually it comes to little. Many years ago, before
the taste for Californian conifers arose, it was planted
more frequently, and so we see in some valley gardens
stately trees of it, mostly by or near water. About the
time our own people were busy planting the tree many
were planted in the north and west of France, and in
the valleys of the Loire and the Seine beautiful examples
may be seen, some over 100 feet high. Near Orleans
there lived once a nurseryman having some fine trees
of this on his ground, who left his property to some
good Sisters in the town on condition that they should
always preserve his Cypress trees. The ground that
was once a nursery is now a grazing plot, adorned with
several stately trees standing up over their surroundings
as distinctly as the great church of Orleans towers above
the houses around, their stems like enormous pillars,
beautiful in colour and form. They are not beside water,
but on a rich bottom.

It is not necessary to have a river bank on which to
plant, though very often that is the best position, as
rivers carry down deep soil. But that may occur with-
out the immediate presence of water, and wherever there
is this deep, moist, and free soil, we may in our country
hope for success with this tree. Having proof of its
hardiness, fine form, and great size, we should give up
the practice of regarding it as an ' ornamental ' tree only,

of the Northern Forest 75

and mass it in likely places where we shall eventually
get its true forest aspect— one of the noblest in the
northern world. By so doing it by no means follows
that we lose its beauty, and the fresh, distinct effect of
the foliage is good in all conditions where the tree
thrives. The habit of propagating this tree from cuttings
may be one cause of its failure. It should always be
raised from seed and planted young, the younger the
better provided rabbits are kept out by well-supported
netting. The presence of water does not assure us of
a good result, as some artificial waters are formed in
poor or cold, impervious soils.

The English name of this tree, ' Deciduous Cypress/
is not a good one, and I follow the accepted American
name of ' Bald Cypress '.

There are worthless varieties of the Bald Cypress of no
garden value and often offered under false names (i. e.
Glyptostrobus) which serve only to throw pseudo-botani-
cal dust in people's eyes. These distortions should be
avoided by all who wish to realize the beauty and dignity
of the tree. The true way to a fine result is to grow it
from seed of the wild tree, which germinates readily in
a few weeks, and growing it in the best natural condi-
tions. Like most trees of the Pine order it has a tendency
to vary in its branchlets, and for nurserymen to seize
such bits, and increase and name them, is to do much
harm to the interest of good planting, especially to those
beginners to whom a ponderous Latin name may seem
to represent a real tree and not a wretched ' sport '.

The Tulip tree. Although it may never attain in our
country to the dimensions of those in its native land,
this is a tree of proved value ; and though not planted
as a forest tree should be, among its fellows in woods,

76 Greater summer-leafing trees of Northern Forest

still it attains striking development in many of our
country seats, as in the example at Esher Place. The
fact that, fully exposed as the trees are, in pleasure
grounds and lawns, and with the roots robbed by the
grass, they yet attain this size, proves that, planted and
grouped in a more natural way, we ought to get an even
finer growth. Any free soil suits it, if deep and fresh
without being wet. It grows faster than many forest
trees, is free from insect pests, beautiful in flower, and
excellent as timber. To do well it should be planted
young and left to itself, being averse to removal or
cutting.

Hickories and Walnuts. Of all interesting trees the
most neglected perhaps in our country are the American
Hickories and the Walnuts. More often seen in France
than in England, the Hickories are tall graceful trees
allied to the Walnuts, which are also very important
trees. But perhaps these trees come more under the
head of experimental planting in our country, and one
should make a moderate beginning and in a good soil.
The Black Walnut is a very free-growing tree in our
country, and there are other important kinds worth
trying.

CHAPTER VI

NATIVE AND EUROPEAN TREES BEST FOR OUR ISLANDS

IF we have eyes for the highest beauty in tree-life, we
may find that after looking for it round the world and
having gone through all the books and pictures of
Californian and other giant trees, we may have to seek
for it at home among the trees of Europe and Britain.
But we live in a time when the pursuit of things exotic
is so active that the value of native trees is often for-
gotten. We see in books of much show of learning, like
Brown's ( Forester ', trees named as being fit for forest
work in Britain which are not only of no proved value,
but even require a greenhouse to live in, like the Norfolk
Island Pine. Catalogues, too, nourish the delusion that
we must look to other lands for all our good things, and
we see men planting many costly and useless trees who
never plant native trees. Wretched plantations these
costly exotic trees often make, as all may see who
watch them for a few years. While with the native tree
on a suitable soil there is no going back, with the
foreigner all is risk.

It is not a matter of hardiness only ; a tree may be as
hardy as the Spruce on the mountains of central Europe,
and yet do poorly in southern England. The native
tree is ready to respond to every impulse of the season,
is happy with our rainfall — often a- slight one in some
districts — and, given the soil right for it, soon makes in
growth an end of all the pretensions of exotic rivals.
Soil and right situation every tree must have ; the rock

78 Native and European trees

from which springs the column of the Pine will do
nothing for the Oak, and any tree, native or exotic, is
profitless and often ugly on ground that does not suit it.
Wood value. For quality and value of wood the native
tree is by far the best. Nothing else that can be done
with the land that suits our native Oak will pay so well
with so little labour. The natural Beech woods of
Normandy and Britain are among those that more than
repay the owners. No foreign tree we grow, except
the Larch, now stricken in many districts by a disease
which threatens to make it useless for us, equals in
value the wood of our Oak, Ash, and Tree Willows.
The facility of increase of our native trees should also
be thought of; and it is clear from what we may see in
a neglected field that the Wealden land in Kent or
Sussex would soon be a forest of Oak if let alone. If
we plant Pines in an arable field that has been under
the plough for years, we shall probably find Ash, Oak,
and Birch, sown by squirrels, mice, or winds, starting
up here and there and keeping pace with the quickest
growing Pines. But it is not only the value as timber
of our native trees I wish to show, it is their beauty ;
no trees introduced from other countries equal in that
our native ones, with the exception of the Cedar of
Lebanon. In many districts there are no natural old
woods where our native trees can be seen in their forest
forms ; but the beauty exists for all who care to see it,
and in many ways. What various forms the Oak
assumes in chase, or park, or wood, and perhaps most
impressively in old Oak woods, where the trees stand
tall and close. The tree varies in different countries ;
such stately Oaks as we may see by the roadside in
Warwickshire we never see south of London, where

best for our islands 79

there are many Oaks in many forms. So, too, the
Beech, a true northern tree in its vigour ; how fine it is
in many conditions — on chalky hills and also in the level
land, whether in Surrey or on the Lothians. The Ash
—one of our best timber trees— is often fine in form in
old states. There is a whole string of Elms and their
varieties in catalogues, but by far the best is our native
Wych or Mountain Elm; a noble tree in beauty and
dignity, attaining sometimes a girth of trunk nearly, or
quite, 50 feet and a height of 120 feet. Our native
Poplars are often neglected, the Abele and Grey Poplars
being stately trees, and the wood more valuable than it
used to be. Among Pines, we have none which sur-
passes our native Fir in form and colour; when old,
valuable, too, for timber. The Field Maple is a neglected
tree, but beautiful trees of it can be seen here and there
in woods, as at Mereworth and Brede. The Sycamore
Maple is fine in form, as we may see at Knole and other
places. It is supposed to be a naturalized rather than
a native tree, but over a large area of the coldest parts
of Europe no tree surpasses it in vigour and rapidity of
increase. It is storm-resisting, thrives near the sea, as
in Anglesey, and is altogether one of the best trees for
planting.

Tree Willows. The Tree Willows of Britain have
value as timber, but are neglected by planters even of
gardens, though none of the variegated rubbish of the
nursery gives anything like so good an effect as the
White, Red, and Yellow Willows in winter or summer.
The Common Lime is not a native of Britain, but two
other kinds ( Tilia cordata and T. plafyphyllos) belong to
our native flora. The Hornbeam is a true native,
neglected by planters, though common in some old

8o Native and European trees

woods. The Yew should never be forgotten in wood-
land, where its shelter for game is welcome. It is too
much planted near houses, to the danger of animals and
to the loss of all good flower gardening, owing to its
roots. The Holly, usually in gardens a shrub, is on the
hills and in land that it likes a tree 40 feet high, and
therefore never to be omitted in seeking evergreen
effect.

Trees for beauty. Trees of secondary value as timber
are often of great value for their beauty, and should
never be forgotten by planters with that hope. Thus
Crab, Hawthorn, Aspen, White Beam, Wild Cherry,
Bird Cherry (often a fine tree, as at Longleat), Mountain
Ash, Wild Pear (the Pear in good deep soil, as in
Worcestershire, is a forest tree, and a very fine one),
and the Wild Service Tree with its finely coloured foli-
age in autumn, though rarely planted and only here and
there seen so well as at Blackdown. The Crab is as
handsome as any flowering tree ; the Alder gives us
-good colour by the streams in spring. The Mountain
Ash, or Rowan, is really deserving the epithet splendid
when it is grouped on the hills, or almost anywhere
else ; but it is beloved by the rabbit, and many I have
planted in the hope of adding its fine colour in autumn
to old woodland have been all gnawed round and
destroyed. On rocky ground it is lovely, where it takes
various dwarf forms. The White Beam is an effective
tree at various seasons and well deserves to be made
more of, as also its varieties or hybrids (like Prunus lati-
folia). Some of the trees we admire individually are not
so often seen grouped, though there is nothing more
beautiful than a free group of Aspens on a limestone
soil in autumn. Birch, too, which we often see in the

best for our islands 81

north of Germany, with the white stems rising like
silver columns all round, might be more often effectively
grouped. Nor is any introduced tree so fine in form
when grouped as the Ash, as one often sees it round
a farm-house on the hills or in the north.

In all the changes of fashion as to trees there never
was one in which people were so carried away as by
planting the giant conifers of Mexico and California,
nor one in which failure has been so complete. And we
have not only to suffer the loss of these trees, but there
is the penalty of our neglecting the trees of the forest
plain, from Oaks to Maples, which are far more suited
for a lowland country than the conifers of those lovely
mountains fanned by Pacific Ocean breezes. Similarity
of climate is what we should always remember, and the
more like the climate of our own country, the more
certain success will be. The region of the Corsican
Pine, and that of the Cedars of North Africa, is so high
in altitude that it has somewhat the same conditions of
climate as our own country, the proof being that we see
our own hardy wild flowers and shrubs growing there
among the Cedars. Our aim should be not the increase
of kinds, but making good and artistic use of those that
not only endure but thrive in our climate. Hardiness is
only one of the conditions, as the hardiest trees may fail.

If these pleas for the first place in our work being
given to the trees of Europe and adjacent regions of
Asia and North Africa have any value for the southern
and warmer parts of our islands, they will apply with
greater force to cold midland and northern districts
where only really hardy things thrive. And it is worth
remembering that apparent health in youth is not always
a proof that the tree will prove of lasting value.

G

CHAPTER VII

WOOD AND COVERT FROM SEED

THE free way in which trees sow themselves should
lead us to think of the advantages of sowing the seeds
of some trees direct where they are to grow as a wood.
Perhaps in planting with Pine an arable field in which
a tree has not grown for ages, among the young Pines
we may find young Ash trees and clean young saplings
of the Oak brought thither by squirrels, birds, or mice.
The Scotch Fir sows itself rapidly in heaths and rough
lands in Surrey, Devon, and Hants, and many other
places; Larch we may see come up on poor soilless
railway banks. Sycamore comes up thickly, and, though
not now a tree much planted, is a valuable one in many
ways. Chestnuts are more easily raised from seed than
in any other way, by dibbling in the nuts. The squirrel,
long- tailed bank mouse, the bank vole, the jay, and the
rook are among the living things that bring and scatter
the seeds of Oak and other trees for us.

Our reasons for sowing direct are various ; plants for
forest work are not easy to get in many districts, planting
trees too large is fatal to success. As the ordinary
nursery does not always lend itself to the cultivation of
forest plants in the best state for woodland planting,
nurserymen often have to apply to other growers for
them, and hence a double movement of the plants, often
to their injury. Unless, moreover, the ground is ready,
the plants suffer after getting home. The best results

Wood and covert from seed 83

are from little trees, say under a foot high generally, but
during hot years, in the southern and midland counties,
failures are common, even of sound little trees. Planting
as usually done is expensive. This is especially so if
the work is not organized by a woodman, who knows
what to do and how promptly planting should be done.
Every trade has its routine way, which is not always
the best way for the buyer, and is often nothing more
than a trade convenience. Sowing trees is a most
interesting way, it is also the natural way, and my ex-
perience is much in favour of seedling trees as against
planted trees; and those who have poor fields might
sow them with tree seeds, getting sound seed, and
from good sources. The sowing of trees may be done
in different ways according to the soil, the trees chosen,
and the labour at our disposal. It may be done broad-
cast, and not a bad way in good Oak land is to scatter
acorns over the ground and then run a light plough
over it, which throws them into lines and also preserves
the acorns from their numerous enemies during the
winter. Acorns may be dibbled with success in the
underwood also. Chestnuts may be planted in the same
way. Bare rocky surfaces may be sown broadcast.
These remarks apply to native trees and such hardy
forest trees as readily take to our climate, and of which
sound seed is either at hand, as in the case of Oak, Ash,
and Sycamore, or to be obtained from a good seed
house.

Sowing covert direct. If in any bold or varied planting
in unfamiliar soil we succeed in one half what we
attempt we are fortunate; and I think the best thing
I ever did in planting was sowing a bare field of some
seven acres with Gorse. It was about to be planted —

G 3

84 Wood and covert from seed

some part was, in fact, already partly planted— with little
forest trees, when I scattered the seed broadcast over
the field. The field was wired and rabbits kept out, and
after five or six years the effect of the Gorse, with the
young Pines and Larch growing up and standing a little
above it, was good. The warm colour of Gorse as a
covert in winter is pleasant. Where is there another
shrub that does so much for us ? In old woods it has
less chance owing to the rabbits and partly to shade.
On railway banks, or bleak, dry, 'brashy' places, it
thrives and looks at home. Where in clearing fences
or old fields a difference of level often occurs— the result
of ages of ploughing — it is a good plan to sow Furze on
the little rough terraces. There would be no particular
advantage in seeking this Furze treasure where the
bush abounds, as in many parts of Ireland, Cornwall,
and Devon ; but where it is not common it is one of the
best covert bushes one could raise.

As to sowing among young forest trees, I simply take
advantage of the spaces between them, and, instead of
the Furze being a hindrance to the young trees, it is
a gain, inasmuch as the Furze thickly planted is a soil-
maker, its leaves falling thickly, and the rapid-growing
Pines, closely planted, as they ought always to be, will,
after some years, get clean above it and finally get the
field to themselves. In making the best offences, the live
fence, Furze seed scattered along the banks comes up
very soon ; it looks very beautiful in such places, and
helps to make the fence a more sheltering, dividing line.
As so many are particular about the time they sow or
plant anything, I may say that there is nothing to be
gained by sowing such seeds early. A very good time
is in April, when the nightingale comes, May, or early

Wood and covert from seed 85

in June ; and, as there is no covering or transplanting,
it does not much matter if the seeds are sown at night.
It must not, however, be thought an altogether hap-
hazard business, because the man with the seed bag is
supposed to know his plants and the places that are
likely to suit them. Furze seed is sold at a low price
by all the great seed houses of Europe if bought in any
quantity. Other kinds of Furze I have tried in like
ways, and find that the tall one known as the Foxbrush
(Ulex strictus) does equally well. It is a very rapid
grower and a fine, useful aid for the farm, as it faggots
more compactly than any other Furze. Much less
vigorous than this is the dwarf Furze (U. nanus), which
abounds in rough heaths in many parts of the country.
It thrives and looks well sown in places where a com-
pacter growth is wanted, it is as free and easy as any,
and may be sown just in the same way. The dwarf
Furze is beautiful in autumn when all the other bushes
are losing their charms, and best for low foregrounds
and rather bare, sandy, and stony places.

The Brooms. I never fancied these so much as the
Furzes, owing to their scraggy habit (when old) not
forming such good covert, though ,they are beautiful.
The best, the Spanish Broom (Spartium junceum),
flowers much later than the others, and is a showy,
handsome plant, growing on any gravelly or sandy
place, no matter how dry. I saw no place so suitable
for this as a railway bank near, so standing on the top
of the bank I scattered the seed and let it fall on a steep
slope formed of debris and with no soil. The natural
soil of the place is about as poor as any on earth — simply
shaly rock — and the bank was overrun by rabbits. After
some time the Spanish Broom began to show itself.

86 Wood and covert from seed

I was encouraged to sow more in spite of the rabbits,
and there are now thousands of bushes on this water-
less, soilless bank, and a beautiful bloom comes in mid-
summer after most of the flowering shrubs are past, the
effect being good as far as it can be seen. Our native
Broom (Cytisus scoparius] is a very beautiful plant, though
it does not make such good covert as the Furze. It is
very graceful where it grows here and there in quarries
or rough, stony places. The Portuguese (or White)
Broom (C. albus) is a graceful bush and comes freely
from seed, which should be sown in sandy, warm places.
Sow early in June. One of my reasons for sowing the
seeds of these things is the difficulty of transplanting
them if not bought very young, and even then they often
fail. Besides, there is the expense of transplanting and
no end of labour entirely got rid of by bold sowing, and
my friends and myself see better effects from this work,
simple as it is, than has been got in other ways with
many times the expense and labour. In garden culture
it would often repay to slightly cover the seed, and in
sowing small pieces it would be safer to do so ; but
in dealing with various rough surfaces about a country
place, and using seed freely, it is not necessary.

In the autumn of 1903, acorns being plentiful, I sowed
a field with them, using the plough. They came up
well, too thickly, and we lost two or three years in
growth by neglecting to keep out rabbits. In spite
of that the roots eventually became the masters, and by
the summer of 1906 we had a vigorous Oak wood.
Excluding ground game one might then hope to raise
on cool ground a thriving young Oak wood in twelve
years.

A better way than mine, if there be the time to carry

Wood and covert from seed 87

it out, would be to dibble in acorns at about 4 feet
apart in lines each way (all the better if we gather
acorns from some famous or fine trees) and wire
against rabbits. Then when the acorns come up plant
a little Larch between each two baby Oaks to act as
nurses, and to be cut away in good time. In this case
we might hope for a good result, all the more so if the
soil were too stiff for profitable use as arable.

CHAPTER VIII

EVERGREEN COVERT

THERE is nothing about which there is more loose
talk than in the matter of covert plants. One famous
sportsman tells people to put Privet where they want
covert near water — a most weedy and evil-smelling
shrub, besides bad covert, its rapid growth being its only
recommendation. It is a mistake to use a weedy bush
merely because it grows quickly. Most hardy shrubs
grow quickly enough, and some of the most rampant
growths are the soonest to go back. On the whole, the
best covert plants, especially for woods near the house,
are the native and other hardy evergreens. In the
choice of such plants their beauty should not be over-
looked, and things of offensive odour and other bad
qualities like the Privet should be rejected.

Rhododendrons. There is a shrub which is hardy and
beautiful as an evergreen covert plant, fine in colour,
and of vigorous constitution. It is ' Cunningham's White ',
an old kind which, although called white, is a rosy-lilac
colour in bud. It is one of the best plants for growing
in any cold, or rough, or even clay soil, forming far
better covert than the pontic Rhododendron, and having
also the advantage that it can be bought on its natural
root in some nurseries. It is easily increased, and grows
in any soil. I have had a healthy group of it in clay
(part of the dug-out foundation of a building) for over

Evergreen covert 89

a dozen years ; it never turns a leaf in any frost, and is
a close and excellent covert.

Rhododendrons are often planted, but it is the common
pontic kind, which, used as a stock, ends by killing the
good kinds grafted on it. If, however, we take to layer-
ing our brilliant kinds of hardy Rhododendrons, then we
shall have such underwood effect as no garden can rival.
It is not necessary to put the finer and hardier Rhodo-
dendrons, raised mostly from the hardy North America
kinds, on the somewhat tender ponticum, and, if nursery-
men will not layer them, every one who has a good kind
should layer it for himself wherever the plant grows.
Some of the best nurseries now have already good
stocks of the finer kinds on their own roots, and are
preparing more. These in cool woods would almost
layer themselves, and give a splendour of colour in
summer that no man's planting could surpass.

Box. There is no more useful evergreen covert than
this for chalky, light, and warm soils, and for growing
where it would be hard to establish covert from foreign
shrubs. Few who only see Box weary and drawn in
the shrubbery have any idea of its beauty massed on an
open down. As an evergreen group on a hot and poor
bluff in a wood it is fine in effect, and an excellent and
warm covert. Happily, this native evergreen loves our
poorest and driest soils, of which there is such a vast
area in the southern counties. Box will thrive on chalky
wastes where no other shrub appears, and, fortunately,
it is so distasteful to rabbits that it is let alone in places
infested by them.

The Evergreen Barberry (Berberis Aquifolium). This
is a pretty evergreen, and a free grower in many peaty,
open soils, but not so free in certain heavy soils. As,

9O Evergreen covert

however, these occur in certain parts of the country
only, it may be included among the very best shrubs for
evergreen covert.

The ' Sweet Bay ', or True Laurel (Laurus nobilis).
I had never seen this used as covert, but having many
bushes of it to spare I tried it in old woodland, and was
pleased to see how well it looked. It is very cheery in
colour in the winter season, and it grows very freely in
southern and seashore districts. Even if not generally
used as covert it can be made to form very pretty groups
in woods, but rabbits soon destroy young plants of it if
not wired.

Juniper. Our native kind is meant here; it makes
very good covert for the poor, dry, and chalky soils too
frequent in the southern half of the country. Junipers
can be had from various parts of the world, but our own
native Juniper is as worthy of cultivation for this purpose
as any, and we have so few really hardy evergreens. In
the valleys in Surrey it grows to a height of 18 to 24
feet, though usually only a bush.

Savin (Juniperus sabina). This is one of the most
graceful and hardy of all dwarf evergreens, and admira-
ble for cold hills or stony ground, no matter how wet or
poor. It is a dwarf Juniper that clothes those parts of
the mountains of central Europe too bare to support
anything larger. If not easily bought in quantity it can
be readily increased by pulling up the branches, which
often throw out many rootlets. These should be planted
firmly and a stone put over the part left out of the
ground, or it can be pegged down to stop wind-waving.

Ivy. This is undervalued for its use and beauty in
woods, and is too often cut away. It would be well, in
many places where the large-leaved Ivies are grown, to

Evergreen covert 91

put them here and there in copses. They are of all
things the most easy to increase, the young shoots pulled
off wall or tree rapidly rooting in moist earth. The Ivy
is among our best native evergreens, as, after carpeting
the wood and clothing the tree-stems, it takes the tree
form, and is as good an evergreen as any.

The Great Partridge Berry (Gaultheria Shallon). A
valuable covert bush, difficult to obtain in many nurseries
owing to the small demand for it. It will thrive in
ordinary soils and runs about apace in wet peaty places.
In Scotland it seems to be better known than in the
south, for it has been largely planted there for covert,
as at Balmoral. It is one of the shrubs that will thrive
in the shade of Pine plantations, and is in all ways
excellent.

The Cherry and Portugal Laurels. The Cherry Laurel
(usually, but wrongly, called the Laurel) is, perhaps,
more used than any other bush, but has certain defects,
being not hardy in severe winters even in Ireland, and
also, it is too vigorous for underwood covert, and when
chopped back, as it very frequently has to be, it is ugly.
Some of the newer forms, however, are hardy, especially
that from the Shipka Pass ; and its beauty is best seen
in a wood allowed to grow in its own natural way. In
some southern and mild districts the Portugal Laurel
and some of its handsome forms are very free-growing,
but in cold and inland districts they are apt to be cut
down in hard winters. They are so free and handsome
in the south and west, however, that they may be used
with good effect.

Yew grows well in the shade, and gives warm covert,
but should only be put in the interior of woods owing
to its poisonous nature, and the woods should be fenced

92 Evergreen covert

or much trouble may arise from stock eating it. It is
naturally common in some districts, and cannot be ex-
cluded from our plantings, and the safest way with it,
perhaps, is to put it in a dense group towards the centre
of a wood, where its shelter will be very welcome to
birds in winter.

The Palmate Bamboo (Bambusa palmata). I first had
this in a moist wood in rather black soil, and then took
a fancy to moving it to the water-side, and although we
took the plant out carefully from the wood, a number of
roots remained, and from these arose the most graceful
colony of plants I ever saw, so fresh and fine a green in
the middle of winter as almost to make one forget the
season ; the shoots are handsome enough to cut for the
house in winter, the growth close, and the form good.
It was also quite free by the water-side, where its fine
reed-like habit goes well with Reeds and Willows.

The Japanese Bamboo (B. Metake). This is very free
and hardy in varied conditions, and a fine covert plant.
It has long been cultivated in Surrey nurseries, and is
easy to secure ; it increases quite freely either in wood-
land or near water. Some of the older Bamboos, such
as used to be grown first of all, as B.falcata so well in
the south of Ireland at Fota, give tall covert of a graceful
sort, but not so good as these.

A beautiful evergreen covert plant. We often see
lists given in catalogues of covert plants, like Privets,
which are only of slight beauty and value, and inferior
to our native Briers, Bracken, and Furze as covert plants.
There is one bush, however, not always known as
a native be it said, which makes the most beautiful of
all evergreen covert, especially in sandy, chalky, stony,
or dry gravelly soils, where few other things will thrive.

Evergreen covert 93

The Box is common in shrubberies, but is rarely seen
in its natural form of a spreading plumy bush on an open
sunny hill-side. I know nothing more beautiful among
evergreens than Box-trees fully exposed, as there they
have a charm never seen in ' shrubberies '. A great
quality, and one which raises it entirely in value above
Laurels and the other evergreens commonly used for
this purpose, is that rabbits do not touch it, owing to
some poisonous property. In the last two years, in the
hope of getting some evergreen covert, I tried the
hardiest form of the Cherry Laurel, and also (a great
favourite of mine) the true Laurel or Sweet Bay ; though
accustomed to the depredations of the rabbit, I never
saw anything so sad as the disappearance of both, many
plants being absolutely bitten to the ground, whilst in
the same woods Box of all sizes remains untouched. For
this reason above all, as well as for reasons of shelter,
pleasant colour, and hardiness, it should take the first
place among evergreen covert plants. There is a vast
range of our country in which it grows well : and even
where compact soils abound— which it dislikes — it is
often possible to find patches of gravel or sand in which
it will thrive. It is at home on arid soils and on hill-
sides and mountain slopes ; large tracts of forest are
covered by it in southern and western France and
other parts of southern Europe, northern Africa, and
northern and western Asia; it is also found in some
of our southern and western counties — Kent, Surrey,
Sussex, and Gloucester. Long-living and slow-growing
as it is, it will, in the best conditions, rise to a height of
20 feet or over, and sometimes be as much as 6 feet
round the stem. But grand specimens like these are
the exception, and most often it is seen as a compact

94 Evergreen covert

shrub. It is easy to establish or move at any age, but
for covert use is best small, when it can be bought very
cheaply. It seeds freely in our country, and on arid
slopes might be increased by scattering the seed on the
surface. To many the odour of Box is agreeable, and
its colour also is very beautiful.

Hedges and shelters of Holly. Our country is fortunate
in having as a wild tree the most beautiful evergreen of
western Europe, and one denied to much of the country
in central and northern Europe and a vast region in
North America, where it will not withstand the winters.
In beauty other evergreen Hollies are inferior to it,
hence its berried branches are sent in quantities to North
America at Christmas. Of all possible living evergreen
fences the best is Holly in close but not stiffly clipped
lines. Better still is the free undipped Holly hedge, as
it makes a fine shelter as well as a good background.
In Warwickshire and other counties it often makes as
good a shelter round fields as any shed. Of the clipped
Holly hedges fine examples are at Woolverstone in
Suffolk. Where land is not valuable— either from its
poverty or elevation or other reasons — it matters little
whether the hedge is clipped or not, especially round
woodland and for cutting off woods from pasture fields.
For such a case the finest hedge is that of undipped
Holly, because then we get its fruit and protection and
fine form. Such hedges might be either of Holly alone
or mixed with Sloe or Quick. Where from the nature
of the soil it is not easy to raise Hollies from seed — as
they should have friable open ground in the young
state — it is best to buy small plants from the forest
nurseries. The worst enemy of the Holly hedge is the
rabbit. I have lost thousands of plants in that way, and

Evergreen covert 95

although many places are not so much infested, still
great care must be taken, or in hard winters the Hollies
are sure to be destroyed. Where Holly comes naturally,
as it does in many parts of the country, the destruction
is not noticeable except after hard winters, when even
old woods of it are destroyed. Being a close-growing
shrub it forms a shelter for cattle, and as it grows much
better than the Hawthorn under hedgerow trees it ought
to be more often used for enclosing meadows and
pastures. It keeps itself almost free from weeds, owing
to the closeness of its branches at the bottom, and it is
free from insects. Holly is found flourishing on dry
gravelly land as well as on strong clay, but sandy loams
are the soils it delights in most.

CHAPTER IX

UNDERPLANTING

IN the present state of our woodlands, when through
the decay of the trade in underwood and the neglect of
the trees many woods are thin and worn out, 'under-
planting* should be thought of. Pines, that in youth
might have covered the earth with their branches, have
grown and shed most of their boughs, and Grass has
begun to invade the ground, bringing in its train starva-
tion to the trees, the sun and drying winds completing
the ruin of the unsheltered woodland. Now this cannot
happen if a wood is managed in the best forest way,
which never allows the overhead canopy to be broken.
The thin, scraggy plantations, so common by British
roadsides and fields, are more open to the attacks of sun
and drying winds than the broad, natural woodlands in
the best planted counties and estates. The remedy for
the stale woodland is ' underplanting '. That means,
when woods get thin from any cause, the introducing of
young trees, usually of other kinds and what are called
' shade bearers '.

In replanting old woodlands we must choose trees
which will thrive in partial shade ; and as in old wood-
land it is difficult to protect young trees from rabbits, we
must, if we can, choose those that are not so loved of
that pest. Where the nakedness of the wood occurs in
large patches we can plant and wire, but in large wood-
land areas we must plant the young trees singly near

Underplanting 97

the older trees, and hence the necessity for choosing
kinds that will thrive in partial shade. Among the
summer-leafing trees the best for underplanting is the
Beech, of which in certain forests of the north of Europe
trees of 50 to 60 feet may be seen thriving under Pines
nearly 100 feet high, and both close set. Interaction of
the roots of trees of different kinds is rather beneficial
than otherwise. After the Beech may be named the
Hornbeam, Oak, Ash, and, on sandy or rocky soils, the
Chestnut (not the Horse Chestnut, which is not a
Chestnut at all). Most of the trees named — except the
Ash — are not very subject to the attacks of rabbits, and
they also bear planting as saplings of 7 to 9 feet, though
beyond that size it is risky. In all cases we must avoid
trees too old for transplanting. We cannot with success
plant Pines of large size, but with a little care in buying
from forest nurseries we can get tall saplings of the
summer-leafing trees that will grow well.

Among Firs the best for underplanting is the Silver
Fir, which may often be seen in the German forests
growing well under the other trees, all closely set.
Spruce, in wet land, is also good ; and in our southern
and western country the Douglas Fir is excellent and
soon gets its head up among the other trees, the shelter
of which is a help to it at first. Yew too is useful.

The effect of underplanting in the best cases is excel-
lent, and woods treated in this way can be very beautiful,
varied, and full of life; but in order to enjoy such woods
well-considered rides should be made through them, so
that they may be airy and accessible in all weathers.
Where, as is often the case, the outer parts of a Pine
wood look thin and scraggy, the variety in the Pine
family is such that we may help and shelter the older

H

98 Underplanting

wood. The Junipers, Mountain Pine, Yew, and close
slow-growers like the Swiss Pine may be planted as
a close-growing tree garland. In exposed places these
may give good effect. The Holly, too, is the best of
evergreens for underplanting and may be seen growing
even in Beech woods.

CHAPTER X

OF MIXED WOODS

IN countries where forestry is best practised there is
much evidence of the utility of having woods formed of
trees of different kinds, ages, and times of cutting. The
reasons are many, but perhaps the most serious are the
following : When we plant a tree like the Larch, putting
them in solid masses of the same age, any disease that
comes to the tree is much more likely to sweep through
the wood than it would be if trees of various kinds were
intermixed. Wind, often a destroyer of trees, is far less
severe in the mixed wood, not only because some of the
kinds are wind-resisting, but also because the different
ages and heights of the trees help to break its force.
Mixed planting is more likely to lead to a better annual
output, as the roots of mixed trees get more out of the
ground than a wood of one kind of tree only. It also
allows us to associate light-seeking trees, like the Pines,
with others, like the Beech, that do well below them. It
commits us to no monotonous or regular mixture, for it
allows of varying the wood in a way that is good for it,
either for effect or growth, and of adapting the tree to
the soil. A boggy spot we may plant with Willows ;
a rocky knoll, with wind-resisting Beech ; a wet stretch
near a stream, with Spruce.

We may see in the forest-clad mountains of the Tyrol
how often trees grow naturally together — Larch, Scotch
Fir, and Norway Spruce. Where the conditions suit

H 2

ioo Of mixed woods

a given kind completely we see it prevail, but there are
many other conditions in which several kinds of trees
grow equally well — groups of Larch among colonies of
Fir or Norway Spruce— also single trees of each kind
scattered here and there with a sprinkling of Birch and
Beech, until the ground rises so high that the trees of
the Pine tribe clothe the rocks. Why should we not
more often follow this way, by which vast and steep
mountain ranges are clothed in some of the most pic-
turesque forest regions of the world ?

Mixed planting. Mixed planting is, in many condi-
tions, the most profitable. It is the way, too, that best
aids us to adapt the soil to the tree ; all the more so in
broken ground, or the many places where we find
striking differences of soil in a small area. To take an
example from a few acres of ground I have lately dealt
with, we have a wet piece of ground near a stream,
where there is a good chance for the Norway Spruce,
which so often starves in dry soil, and above this wet
ground there is a nearly level bed of stiff soil, which
grows Oak of the best quality with a few Ash among it.
Above the level Oak bed there are some acres of a shaly
soil, on which the Oak starves ; so the stunted Oaks are
cleared, to plant with Larch and Scotch and Silver Fir ;
and these conditions occur in a wood of about twelve
acres. It is not intended that any hard lines should be
drawn between any of the trees, but that the kinds shall
run into each other, as they so often do in natural
forests where the soil or altitude changes.

In forming mixed woods the fine vigour of our native
trees may often aid us by their persistent way of coming
from seed where we least expect them. If, in a wood-
land district, we plant an arable field with Pines of

Of mixed woods 101

various kinds, we shall often find vigorous Oak, Ash,
and Birch seedlings keeping company with the young
Pines which had the start of them by a few years. Mice,
birds, and other natural agents carry the seed, and instead
of cutting out the young and often healthy saplings, it is
better to leave them to vary the wood.

Mixed planting by no means confines us to a fixed
rule, but, on the contrary, enables us to take best ad-
vantage of the natural variations of soil and aspect. We
might, in varied soils, enjoy the effect of one tree, pass-
ing gradually into mixed masses of evergreen and hard-
wood trees. The trees being of different ages and cut
at different times, the wood would never at any time be
shorn of its vigorous and constant forest growth. And
this plan would be in no way against beautiful planting,
as where it is in use there is not only good tree growth
from ground valueless for any other purpose, but ex-
amples without end of tree grouping as an effective aid
to landscape beauty.

But the good mixed planting is not the muddle mix-
ture we too often see ; the plan in no way absolves us
from taking care that the trees used are those best fitted
for the soil, climate, and elevation. It need not prevent
us, where a sharp change of soil and degree of moisture
takes place, from planting there only the kind of tree or
trees that will thrive therein.

CHAPTER XI

FORMING WOODLAND RIDES

GOOD rides through woods are necessary for shooting,
for the clearing of the woods, driving, hunting, and the
pleasure of riding or walking in them, and they are often
best dealt with in replanting worn-out underwoods. The
older and more picturesque the woodland, the easier the
task of making rides pleasant to the eye as well as right
for use, though we see many woods without rides of any
value. Native and other plants are often handsome in
masses near rides, and their effect seen in any clear way
in shade is as good as could be given by any plants. By
these rides are among the right places to have beautiful
native wood plants, such as Solomon's Seal, Lily of the
Valley, and Willow Herb, and also many of our hardy
Ferns, in moist spots, such as the Royal Fern. Groups
of neglected native shrubs might also be planted here
and there, and native trees such as the Aspen and Field
Maple, not often planted in the usual mixtures. In warm
and seashore districts not subject to severe frosts we
may have groups of Pampas Grass, New Zealand Flax,
and hardy Bamboo here and there, though generally it
is better to trust to good native things even in such
districts. If we go beyond these, let us take care that
the shrubs are as hardy as any of our own ; it is easy to
find such among the hardy Azaleas and Rhododendrons
and the beautiful Mountain Laurel (Kalmia), where the
soil is not against us.

Forming woodland rides 103

Woodland rides should be not less than 18 feet wide,
and it would be no loss from a shooting or other point
of view to make them a few feet wider, and if a ditch be
made on either side it ought to be in addition to the
1 8 feet. The surface should be Grass, Moss, dwarf
Heather, Thymy turf, brown leaves, according to soil
and elevation and other conditions. A reason for this is
that such surfaces drink up and keep for their own use
the rainfall, which if it fell on bare surfaces might turn
our rides and paths into watercourses. In very hilly
ground we may have to cut rides out of the hill-side, of
shale or rough gravel, sand, or peat. In these conditions
or on any surface where we cannot find a protecting
carpet of vegetation of any kind we shall have to form
little dicks aslant the walk to carry off the storm-water.
Woodland drives should want no care beyond the annual
' fagging ' which the gamekeepers do to remove Briers
and all interloping rank growth before shooting begins.
But in woods near the house, it may be worth while to
rough mow the rides now and then.

Sunny spots in woods. Shade is one of the charms
of the woods in summer ; but where the shade is too
great for any of our plants or bushes, we have our
chance for sun-loving things in glades or open spaces,
so often seen in natural forests. These are to be sought
for the sake of various things— game, sun, light and
shade, and the variety of tree form which is often seen
around such openings. The floor of these glades may
be of turf, Fern, Ivy, or any mixed plants of the woods,
and they are also good places for evergreen or other
covert, e.g. Savin, dwarf Mountain Pine, Partridge Berry,
Heaths— either Cornish Heath or the more vigorous
forms of Heather — and, if we can spare them, brilliant

Forming woodland rides

bushes like Azaleas. Bushes needing sun and warmth
might be grouped in such spots, and in districts where
the cold does not strike hard, as in a great length of the
shore-lands of our islands, other exotics might be tried.
But they should be chosen with care, and only for some
distinct quality. The incidents of the wood itself will
often offer the best places for our sunny spots, and there
might be small openings, too, in shade, suggested often
by wood-plants like Gerard's well-named Stubwort
(Oxalis) and Primroses. As high trees take the place
of underwood there is more need for woodland sun-
spots, and also for more open and airy rides, avoiding
always the too common way of thinning so that each
tree stands singly, a harmful though well-established
British practice, and against all profit or other good
from woodland.

We may by studying carefully the lines of easiest
access and of grading in hilly districts, and the con-
venience of the varied labours or pleasures of the wood-
land, often gain a beautiful result. I have made many
miles of such rides and no like labour has ever given
me so good a return. Where the woodland is level the
work consists of taking out old and often worn-out stubs.
Where it is sloping it is more laborious, but even then
not difficult. Where the woods have been neglected and
are rather worn-out, it is often easy to get a good line
where the ground is bare of trees and thus avoid felling
timber. Sometimes we may take the ride under a great
group of Oaks or Beech-trees to enjoy the beauty of
their stems, and get a better effect than if we avoid
them. In some cases the result was so striking that
parts of the woods, before unnoticed, became picturesque
even in the eyes of artists ; the airy foreground and the

Woodland Ride

To face p. 104

Forming woodland rides 105

fine view along the clearances giving good pictures
when the trees happen to come in the right way. Where
there is much disturbance of the ground I sow mixed
Grass seeds as soon as possible afterwards, mainly in
April, but also in the summer and autumn. As to game,
the airy rides are a distinct improvement in every way,
creatures of all sorts getting a chance to air and sun
themselves in the clearances. The gamekeepers like it
much better, and the timber surveyor tells me that he
always finds the best trees near the open rides.

Woodland shade. It is said by many who have lived
under warmer skies than ours, that hot weather in
Britain is more oppressive than in countries where the
temperature is often much higher; and this is one
reason why we should pay more attention to shaded
rides and airy shade under trees. In a large area of
country in the home counties many woodlands are
wholly without airy and picturesque access, except for
narrow rides closed up every year with Briers and
underwood.

In past years, when underwood was valuable, people
begrudged the space to form airy rides, but this reason
no longer holds. Making such rides in no way lessens
the value of the wood, because every inch of the ground
is occupied by the roots of the near trees, and the best
timber trees often grow near rides. If we can make
rides beneath good old trees or groves all the better,
as beneath such trees the undergrowth lessens, and the
clearance is easier. By all such rides the lower boughs
of the trees should be removed for the sake of showing
the wood and stems; such branches are usually without
value to the tree in its forest state. In the case of fine
old trees, the tree itself is very often trying to get rid

io6 Forming woodland rides

of its lower boughs, and yet we often see them impeding
all progress about the lawns. Where there are good
rides through old mixed or evergreen woods it is
important not to let the undergrowth close in on each
side, as it is very apt to do.

No clipping back. It is difficult to give an idea of the
difference in the effect of such a ride when light and
shade are let into it, and when, as is commonly the case,
trees and undergrowth are clipped back to hard walls,
good views, fine trees, and groups being all shut out.
It is better not to clip in such cases, but always to work
back to a good tree or group, and so get room for the
air to move, the shade of the trees above being sufficient
in each case. The pleasure of driving or walking is
greater when one can see into the woods on each side
and perhaps into the country beyond.

CHAPTER XII

WATER-SIDE PLANTING

EVEN those who care for good planting are apt to
neglect the water-side, and we see much land near it
without any of the lovely effects which well-chosen river
or lake-side trees give. Some things come of themselves,
such as Osier and Withy, but they have little good effect.
Often beautiful views are shut out by these weedy trees,
and where the house is not in a commanding position
they may do much harm. One of the most beautiful of
situations for a house is upon a bluff near a river, as at
Nuneham; and even where there is no bluff, as at
Levens, the river may be a great aid in fine planting,
and careful thought should be given to it.

The best water-side trees are often those of our own
country and easily procured, fine in colour, and good in
form. There are certainly gains in water-side position
which we do not often find elsewhere ; we get air and
light, shade and breadth from the water itself, which
prevents the dotting of plants over the whole area.
Again, there is often good land beside rivers liable to
flood, which we cannot plant with ordinary trees, and
cannot wisely build upon, and these give us those rich
levels that are such a gain in breadth to lowland land-
scape when fringed by noble planting. Flooding is in
no way against the right trees upon islands, lake
margins, and river-sides. Some of the best trees, like
the Willows, are well used to floods, and even trees
like the Eastern Plane, that we often associate with hot,

io8 Water-side planting

dry soils, seem happy in ground sometimes flooded, as
we may see in the Thames valley.

Of all sites for planting there are none in which we
may have clearer guidance as to what is best than we
have in islands and the margins of water, be it lake or
river. The vegetation should be mostly of a spiry-leaved
sort ; Willows in many forms, often beautiful in colour
both in summer and winter, with Dogwoods and Poplars.
Even the Willows of Europe and Britain are ample to
give fine effects, and some, like the White Willow, form
tall timber trees. There is also a superb group of
weeping trees among these Willows, some of them more
precious than the Babylonian Willow. This is worth
bearing in mind when seeking good and artistic effects.
Take, for example, a piece of water, good in form of
margin and right in every way in relation to the land-
scape ; it is quite easy to spoil the effect of it all by the
use of trees which have not the form or colour charac-
teristic of the water-side. By the right use of trees
suited to the soil we may, on the other hand, make the
scene beautiful in delicate colour and fine form — in a
word, right at all seasons, whether as a picture, as
covert, and even for timber.

The best trees for water-side planting are those of our
own country, or of Europe and the northern world
generally, though we need not refuse things that come
to us from other countries. People are so much misled
by showy descriptions in catalogues, and also by their
own blindness to ugly things, that we often see misuse
beside the water of variegated trees and shrubs like the
variegated Elder, the Purple Beech, and other trees of
the worst kind for such a place.

Tree Willows for effect. There are many Willows,

Water-side planting 109

but for good effect the best are the ' Tree Willows ' —
those which may be had on their natural roots, and of
some timber value. The best of these for our country
is the White Willow, lovely at all times, but especially
on days of storm, when other things are often at their
worst. The best effect from planting I ever had was
from putting a bundle of White Willows on an ugly
bank across a lake ; the effect obtained is excellent, and
even the stiff bank is lost to view. The hybrids of the
White Willow (Bedford Willow) are good also, and next
best for colour is the Yellow Willow (Salix vitellina) —
classed by botanists as a variety of the White Willow,
but for planters distinct in stature, form, and colour.
It is often seen beside northern and Irish rivers, but,
when massed in a marsh or bog, or beside a wide river,
it is fine in effect and the best of all in wintry days.
The Red Willow (Cardinal Willow) is a form of it, of
even brighter colour. The Crack Willow (S. fragilis)
is not so showy in colour, but is very picturesque in
form upon river banks, and quite worthy of a place
among the Tree Willows. The new weeping form of
the Yellow Willow (S. vitellina pendula) is beautiful, but
the desire to increase it quickly has led to grafting in
nurseries, which means death, and ugliness in dying.
To strike root as freely as a Willow is a proverb, yet
men will graft Willows where the result is certain failure.
There is not only the loss of a beautiful tree, but the
stock upon which it is grafted— usually the Osier (S.
viminalis) — comes up instead, like a tree-weed, to obscure
the view, and is difficult to get rid of. Many beautiful
Willows of a rarer kind than the Tree Willows here
named have been raised, but the few who plant lose
them through grafting on the Osier.

no Water-side planting

After Willows, the Poplars come in best in all northern
countries. The White Poplar is beautiful in colour as
a river-side tree, and superb in form when well grown.
The supposed pyramidal variety of it is neither so good
nor so lasting. The Poplars of the French rivers are
also beautiful, though none are prettier than the Aspen.
The Lombardy Poplar is sometimes very fine in valleys
near water, but is apt to sicken. The Grey Poplar
comes next to the White in beauty, and the Black
Poplar is often grand beside water.

Some of the American marsh trees are very pretty
near water, in particular the one called the Tupelo
(Nyssa sylvatica), of which there is a fine tree at Strath-
fieldsaye, lovely in colour in autumn ; but the summer-
leafing trees of the American woods have been much
neglected since the vogue for planting conifers came in,
so that we can point to but few examples of good results
in our country. The Western Arbor- vitae and the Hem-
lock Spruce thrive in wet ground, as do the Norway
Spruce and the Sitka Spruce. We resort to trees of
the Pine tribe to clothe sandy or stony hills, but it is as
well to know that for low and wet land we are npt
obliged to confine ourselves to Willows, Alders, and
Poplars, if for any reason we prefer evergreen trees.
In southern parts of Britain where (after its first youth
is past) the Norway Spruce is often a failure, it will yet
grow well beside streams and in wet bottoms. The
Sitka Spruce — a valuable tree — is good also, and the
Douglas Fir thrives in the hollows of wet woods. Even
the Silver Fir, a tree that is not always happy in stiff
soils, makes fine growth near water, and our native Yew
is not averse to the water-side where dense evergreen
covert is desired. The Red Cedar also grows well near

Water-side planting 1 1 1

water and gives dense cover, and, grouped among Dog-
woods and Wild Guelder Rose, does not look amiss.

A danger of water. The ugly pieces of artificial water,
which so often disfigure country places, are often the
cause of fatal accidents. These result chiefly from the
stiff way in which the margins of such waters are made.
Instead of the bank gradually sloping into the water, as
is usual in natural lakes, it is frequently hipped in a
steep way, leaving the water too deep at the margin.
All artificial waters in any position where there is danger
of children falling into them, should be made shallow
and have a gradual slope from the margin. The bank
of turf should fall gently to the water — never jump
abruptly out of it— and the bottom should fall shallow
from the margin. Art and safety go hand in hand in
this way, for the abrupt margin is an eyesore to good
effect, and wrong in every way for the plants that should
grow on it, and is against the effects that should arise
out of any happy union of shore and water.

CHAPTER XIII

SHORE-LANDS PLANTING

WHEN we think of all the lovely things in our island
gardens, from Caerhaes in Cornwall, to Castlewellan in
the north of Ireland, why should we hesitate to plant
near our wildest shores? Island planters should love
the sea, as clearly some of them do, or we should never
have such true gardens as Tregothnan, Abbotsbury, and
many others along the shores of Cornwall and Devon.
It is an error to suppose that these effects by the sea
are only to be had in the south, because we have the
striking instance of Lord Annesley's planting in the
north of Ireland. Doubtless success is to a great extent
a question of shelter, and one may often get that near
the sea as well as anywhere else, in sheltered hollows
near and behind hills lying against the prevailing winds.
Certainly if we do nothing but leave the bare shore-
fields to the winds we do not get much beauty ; but if
care is taken in building up shelter through seashore
shrubs and trees, then good planting may be done.

It is not the seashore folk and those who dwell by
the many river valleys and estuaries that are to be pitied,
but rather those struggling with inland and midland
conditions. For those who have to face such winters as
those of Hungary and central Germany there is no
chance to walk in avenues of Palms, such as those of
Mr. Fox at Falmouth, or among Tree-Ferns, Bananas,
and Gum-trees, as at Menabilly ; so that our privilege
as island planters is a singular one in Europe, consider-

Shore-lands planting 1 1 3

ing our northern position. In no northern country can
we see such a variety of exotic vegetation in the free
air — Himalayan Rhododendron, Palm, Indian Magnolia.
It would take a long time to free people's minds of the
idea that it is only in the warm and often relaxing
southern country that such beautiful results may be got ;
but we can see how wrong it is by such instances as
those of Mr. Acton on the hills of Wicklow, and also
the plantations at Bodorgan on the stormy coast of
Anglesey. Given the same shelter and care in northern
places beautiful results may also be had. Not only
coast gardens may be beautiful, but also plantations of
trees of the highest value, as, by working back from the
shore, with storm-resisting shrubs and trees, we soon
get, even in level and exposed shores, the shelter which
gives us a warm, protecting, evergreen wood. Few
countries are so rich in sheltering trees as our own,
owing to the evergreens that thrive in seashore districts.
Shelter may be near, distant for wind-breaks, across
the line of prevailing winds, and may be of Yew, Holly,
Cedar of Lebanon, native Fir, the Ilex, and Austrian
and Corsican Pines.

By the use near the sea of small-leaved bushes like
the Tamarisks, Sea Buckthorn, Baccharis, and small
Willows, we very soon get some shelter, and by backing
these with close-growing conifers like our Juniper and
some of the sea-loving Pines like Pinaster, and the
Monterey Cypress and the Monterey Pine, we get
shelter for trees, and 100 yards from the shore we may
walk in warm woods. Having got our shelter, the
growth of the hardy Pines of the northern world seems
as easy by the sea as anywhere ; indeed, if there is any
one place where the rather tender Pines are grown well

H4 Shore-lands planting

it is near the sea in places around our coast, where, if
the soil is good, one has not to be so careful about the
hardiness of trees we select as one has to be in inland
places.

The Evergreen Q^k is the most precious of evergreen
trees near the sea ; but as it is not very easily trans-
planted from nursery-bought plants, it is just as well to
raise it at home and plant it young. Seed may be
dibbled in where we wish it to grow. This Ever-
green Oak withstands gales better than any other tree,
and is precious for the south and west and all seashore
districts. It suffers from indiscriminate planting with
other and sometimes coarser things, and is rarely
grouped in an effective way, although at Ham House,
Killerton, St. Ann's, Tregothnan, and Holkham, we may
see the good effect of grouping it. There are many fine
trees of it in coast districts in England and Ireland.
Where there is room the tree should be grouped or
massed, as, apart from effect, we get the best shelter
in that way. At Abbotsbury it is put for an ever-
green shelter round every new plantation, even in that
sheltered dell by the sea.

Among the taller Pines for seashore woods the best is
the Corsican, and, both from the climate of its island-
home on the mountains, and the result of trials in various
parts of England and Ireland, we may make up our
minds about it. The Pines of the northern Pacific coast,
too, are well used to sea influences, and hence we see
in our country good results from planting them near the
sea, as, for example, Menzies' Spruce at Hunstanton,
the Monterey Pine at Bicton, and the Redwood in many
places near the sea. One good result of planting in
such places is that we may use so many evergreen trees,

Shore-lands planting 115

from the Holly to the Cedar, and so get a certain amount
of warmth as well as shelter. Sometimes physical
obstacles help in shore planting, as dunes and low hills,
in the shelter of which we make a beginning. Of this
there is an instructive example at Holkham in the long
Pine wood flanking that cold and often angry shore.
And if we succeed in planting a beautiful evergreen
wood within a few yards of the sea we can then work
back landwards as far as we care to go. In starting,
however, near the shore it is best to use the Corsican,
Austrian, and Monterey Pines, and the Holly Oak, leav-
ing the broad-leaved trees until we get full protection.

There is nowhere a more wind-beaten shore than that
of Anglesea, judging by the appearance of the few
stunted native trees in the open land, but planting of an
effective kind has been done almost on the seashore.
At the water's edge is the Sea Buckthorn, Furze, and
Barberry, which first bar the south-western gales and
winds ; a few paces within these, Pines and Ever-
green Oaks appear, and soon, with the aid of these
excellent shore trees, almost any kind of evergreen
planting may be carried out. The contrast between the
wind-swept surface of the island and the noble avenue
of evergreen trees leading to the house is very striking.
Such planting, however, can be carried out best where
we plant a wood and not a mere belt.

On the vast Danish heaths and dunes of Jutland,
which are constantly swept by the gales from the North
Sea, the White Spruce (Picea alba) has for a long time
been extensively planted and used as the main element
of shelter round numerous large and small plantations.
It answers these purposes so well, that no other known
species would be able to replace it in Danish planting.

I '2

CHAPTER XIV

MOUNTAIN AND HILL AND DOWN PLANTING

THE tree is the crown and garland of the mountain,
and in our land of mostly gentle hills there need be no
fear of planting too many, the hills of Wales and Ireland,
north England, and the down country being as bare of
trees as desert lands. As to this question of hill and
mountain planting there are many things to encourage
us. Far beyond the golden plains of Germany in harvest
days, we see the endless hills close set with Pines —
a lovely background to the rich plains. Though these
vast hill woods are planted by man for use, in no natural
forest is the effect on the landscape better. That should
settle any question as to the effects of woods of nature's
planting and of man's. In that greatest of tree countries,
North West America, it is only when we get above the
plains of wheat and vine that our astonished eyes see
in all their dignity the colossal Pines of the mountain.
In crossing the ocean of shaly hills of North Africa we
never see a tree until we climb far up into the mountain
where the snow lies until May, and then the plumy
branches of the Cedar are seen with the wild flowers
and thorns of our own land at their feet.

There are mountain heights on which all vegetation
ceases, but in our country these seldom occur ; and most
of our mountain land might be planted, and there is a vast
area of it both in Ireland, Wales, and England.

Here the main thing would be to choose carefully

Mountain and hill and down planting 1 1 7

trees that fear no wind or cold. We should plant small
and close, and occasionally even sow the seed direct in
the sod. In the vast ranges of well-planted mountain
land in Europe we have clear guidance as to what to
plant. The trees that clothe the sharp mountain slopes
for hundreds of miles in the Tyrol will not fail us here,
except the Spruce in the dry country of eastern and
southern England. After the Pines of Europe some of
the American trees are good mountain trees, especially
those of the east side and the Rocky Mountain Spruce.
One European tree not common with us, but which well
deserves to be, is the Swiss Pine (P. Cembrd), which is
most precious for mountain planting. In our country it
thrives in any soil, and being a native of Siberia and
the coldest parts of the Swiss mountains it is just the
tree for the bleakest hills of Wales. The Cedars of
Lebanon and Atlas deserve a good place as forest and
mountain trees, being true mountaineers and accustomed
to poor soil. In every hill and mountain country there
are ravines and hollows and small valleys or coombs in
which the soil is better, and that is where we should
plant our Cedars. If we use broad-leaved trees the best
of all is the Sycamore Maple, a tree that endures sea and
mountain winds and storms perhaps better than any
other summer-leafing tree. If we plant Oak on the
flanks of fertile hills, it should be the Durmast Oak. In
the Alps we often see the Beech climbing the hills, with
the Silver Fir and Spruce, and therefore it would help
us especially in the limestone hills of Ireland and the
chalk regions of England.

High moorland planting. In a paper read by Sir John
Stirling- Maxwell, he states that two conditions appear
essential to the creation of new forests in the Highlands,

n8 Mountain and hill and down planting

one a rise in the price of timber, and the other some
measure of assistance from the State, certainly in the
way of instruction and experiment, and possibly also in
the way of loans. He says :

' My experiments in this line have been carried on since
1892 on moorlands in the upper basin of the river Spean,
varying in altitude from 1,250 to 1,500 feet. The tract of
which they form part is used as a deer forest, being fit for
nothing else. Between 500 and 600 acres have been enclosed
for planting without in any way diminishing the value of the
deer forest, as none of the good grazing ground has been
included.

' The results of draining and planting in the ordinary Scotch
fashion have been disappointing. The heavy rainfall and the
retentive character of the peat render draining useless unless
the drains are very close together. The matted texture of
living peat, which the roots of young plants are very slow to
pierce, seems also to exaggerate the inherent evils of notching.
The roots tend to develop in the plane on the notch, and if
they have been twisted in planting, the root-system has no
chance of righting itself, and becomes hopelessly deformed.

'A trial is now being made of the system recently perfected
in Belgium to meet the same difficulties. The moors on the
frontiers of Belgium and Germany very closely resemble
ours in soil and climate, and in the plants which cover them.
The Belgian Government is now planting so much of these
moors as is public property up to a level of about 2,000 feet,
and private owners are following its example. It was found
that plants notched into peat at this altitude made no progress
at all for five or six years. That delay is now avoided by
setting every plant in the centre of a large turf turned upside
down. The ground has to be drained in any case, and
numerous shallow drains are found to succeed best. These
are carefully calculated to supply the number of turfs required.
The Belgian Government plants very wide, usually at 6 feet
both ways, — its object being to convert a vast extent of moor-

Mountain and hill and down planting 119

land into forest as soon as possible. The Government
foresters themselves consider this distance too wide, and
I observed that the plantations on an adjoining property were
being made at about 4 feet. Let us take this example as
better suited to Scotland. To plant at about 4 feet, drains
will be required every 12 feet, with three rows of plants
between. If they are made 2 feet wide at the top, tapering
to 15 inches at the bottom, and 10 inches deep, and the turfs
are cut every 20 inches, the drain will yield exactly the
number and size of turfs required. As the drain is formed,
the first, second, and third turfs are thrown alternately to left
and right, always face downwards.

' The turfs are left for a year. By that time the ground
has begun to dry, the turfs have sunk considerably, and the
herbage below them has begun to decay. They are not good
subjects for notching, as the notches would be apt to gape in
dry weather. But they are very good subjects for what may
be called miniature pit-planting. A heap is made of the best
soil or gravel available near the spot, and this, if pure, is
mixed with basic slag, about half an ounce of slag to the cubic
foot of soil. The planter cuts a circular plug from the centre
of each turf with a long-handled planting tool, leaving a hole
deep enough to allow the roots of the young plant to be spread
out to their full depth. In this hole the tree is planted with
two small handfuls of the prepared soil, while the plug is
broken up to fill in the top.

'Trees planted in this fashion seem to suffer little more
interruption in their growth than would be occasioned by
a move from one part of the nursery to another. The extra
expense is partly made up by the use of smaller plants, which
soon outgrow larger plants which have been notched into
natural surfaces five or six years earlier. On the Belgian
moors, where they plant little except Spruce, these are usually
four years old (two years in the seed-bed, and two years trans-
planted). But Scots Pine, two years old, would be quite
suitable for the purpose, and could be taken straight from the
nursery if they had not been sown too thick.* — Transactions
Scottish Arboricultural Society.

120 Mountain and hill and down planting

In the hard rocky hill or mountain we are not liable
to landslips.

Trees on ground liable to landslips. In some soils
landslips are far from uncommon, and in such a country
it is best to be careful to keep surfaces likely to be
affected in that way planted, so far as may be. Slopes
on such ground cleared of trees, and which for ages may
have held sound, sometimes slip after the roots of the
trees begin to decay. Roads and drives, too, are apt to
give trouble if made near such ground. If near a house
or road a landslip may lead to great expense. Unplanted
land with the same tendency should be planted at the
earliest opportunity with Oak, Beech, and Tree Willows,
with Larch between them, and as these trees got old
and strong they would hold the bank. I once cut down
some old Oaks which grew on a slope above a road, one
of those roads that have been there for ages, and, like so
many in the southern country, is cut deep into the earth.
Soon after the Oaks were cleared and the stout roots
which held the bank together had lost their hold, the
great bank began to slip down to the road. The cost
and labour to repair the bank I should prefer not to tell
of. Difficulties of this sort do not often arise except in
diversified country.

Down planting. In England there are vast areas of
beautiful down land with a divine air and lovely forms
of hill and dale, but bare of trees as a desert without
an oasis. Nature does little or nothing here for the
tree — the thin, dry, chalk-hill soil, the slight rainfall, help
to make the desolation, while in view of the hills Oak
and Ash are strong and numerous in the Weald.

Now here, happily, trees not natives of our land may
give us great aid in imparting a crowning grace to these

Mountain and hill and down planting 1 2 1

sunny hills. Planting down country is one of the most
interesting questions a planter can face.

In ordinary soils the haphazard planting one sees
everywhere may take well, though the final result may
be anything but what we seek in forestry. The same
kind of planting on the downs must fail. In down
planting the trees must be those that put up with the
conditions; and here foreign trees come to our aid.
One such tree alone is a great gain for the down, and
that is the Austrian Pine, which in its wild state inhabits
a very chalky tract of country in Lower Austria. In our
country it is a precious tree for such situations and might
be planted alternately with Larch. It is a great soil-
maker and would improve the soil of much of the down
country. I would also trust the Corsican Pine, but on
the best ground, and the Cedars of Lebanon and Atlas
might also have a place with trees that can grow in
calcareous soil. They are certainly worthy of a trial
planted young and treated as forest trees.

While the colossal trees of the Pacific coast are those
that love and must have a sandy loam and fertile soil
to thrive in, other Pines, like the ones previously men-
tioned, will thrive on chalky soils. Most notable of all,
perhaps, is our native Yew, the plumes of which we
see on many a Kentish down, often struggling with
most adverse conditions and making excellent covert
and shelter.

The Numidian Fir tolerates a chalky soil and is a
hardier tree than the Crimean Fir. The White Oriental
Spruce is a graceful tree that will succeed well, and
I think also the Rocky Mountain Spruce (P. Parry ana).
With the Corsican and Austrian Pines might also be
tried the Pyrenean and the Calabrian. The beautiful

122 Mountain and hill and doivn planting

Abies cephalonica and cilicica are also said to tolerate
chalk.

The ever-precious Larch comes in to help us in down
planting, alternately with other evergreen trees, and,
given the coolest soils, it will help for a time even if it
is to be eventually cut away.

The Beech is the great forest tree of the down country,
and we have many instances of its profitable culture both
in England and northern France. So that we have
more trees than one would at first expect for this difficult
planting. It is not only necessary to get the right trees
and plant them young, but also to include in our planting
every bit of covert, native or otherwise, that grows in
or will grow on the chalk. First among these we may
name the native Juniper. An excellent covert plant
and a native also of the southern downs is the common
Box, the most graceful of covert trees for open and
sunny places. The plumy Savin, also, of the Alps of
Europe would help, and Furze or any bushy thing that
will live on the ground, the object being to create a
covert and keep the soil cool. In the little valleys or the
richer soils about the house the Walnut is a precious tree.

In endeavouring to establish covert in a down country,
the seed might be sown in free bare ground of things
like Box and Furze, even without any preparation of the
soil or covering. But these plants are offered by the
thousands in forest nurseries. Where the down turf is
much matted together it may be well to follow the plan
adopted in the Belgian experiments before referred to
or a modification of it, say by turning a few turfs upside
down around each plant. This should be done after the
planting, and may be done at a later period— in spring for
choice.

CHAPTER XV

WOODLAND FINE IN COLOUR

NOTHING I may say can sufficiently show the high
importance of this to the planter. The first thing to do
is to get the splashy, ugly variegation of the nursery out
of our way. The invention of variegated conifers and
other variegated trees and shrubs has been the mis-
fortune of those who see true natural colour. All that
artificial and hideous colour which often disfigures even
noble gardens should be avoided altogether by the
woodland planter. Remember that in addition to the
beauty of our common trees— Ash, Beech, and Oak —
some of our less planted native trees — Wild Service-
tree, the Aspen, Wild Cherry, Rowan, Bird Cherry,
Hornbeam, White Beam— are often good in colour.

Apart from its beauty, a great charm is that this lovely
woodland colour comes just when all our garden things
are laid low. Good as the colour of our native trees is,
we ought not to forget the beauty of the trees of North
America and Asia, and the importance of planting these
where they are free and hardy in our country. Our
woods are often full of colour right through the autumn,
and some of the American trees, where people have the
art of grouping them effectively, have as fine a colour in
our woods as in their own. To the eye open to the
delicate gradation and variety of good colour, that of
our British woods is as good as any, and the winter
effects are often most beautiful, from Alders by the busy

124 Woodland fine in colour

stream to Oaks massed with silvered stems. Almost
every native tree and shrub is beautiful in colour of
flower, leaf, or fruit. Scarlet Dogwood, Red and Yellow
Willows, Gorse, Broom, Holly in berry, Rowan, our
native Barberry (a lovely thing in fruit in groups), the
Spindle-tree, and the Wild Guelder Rose, are among
our trees that give the most brilliant effect; but for
refined colour that of our common woodland trees in
picturesque planting is best of all.

Although we are mainly concerned here with the trees
that give us fine colour, yet undergrowth is always with
us, and our own native things — Bracken, Briers, and
Wild Roses — are often very good in colour. It is easy
to add to these, if we care to, the number of Wild Roses
in cultivation now being so large. Dogwoods help very
much as undergrowth, as also do Viburnum and Hazel.
Although we are chiefly considering the colour of foliage,
we cannot put out of view the good colour of some
shrubs, such as Box, Furze, and Broom, and for poor
places and bare, poor soils we have our native Heaths,
which give as good a ground colour as any plants can
give.

Oaks. The most beautiful colour of our native Oak
is in the time of bud and early leaf, when a wood of
Oaks is so striking for its charm and variety, especially
if from a near height. In autumn, Oak also takes fine
colour, and next we have the colour of the stems in
winter. The American Oaks, so little grown with us in
woodland, are unrivalled for depth of hue. What can
be more effective in autumn than Quercus tinctoria ?
The Red Oak, too, has its charms in the reddish tint of
the decaying leaves. Two others are nearly equally good
— the American White Oak and the Chestnut-leaved Oak,

Woodland fine in colour 125

Maples. Some of these are splendid in colour, the
best for Britain being the Norway Maple, which has
given me a finer result as regards colour than any other
tree. The American Maples are brilliant, too, though
generally not quite so vigorous in our country. The
smaller Japanese Maples are also often rich in colour,
but in woodland work we must always prefer the greater
trees. The Silver-leaf Maple (Acer dasycarpum) is one
of the most graceful of trees ; in early spring it is covered
with myriads of reddish flowers ; then its leaves, green
above, silvery-white below, turn in autumn to a varied
colour. The Scarlet Maple is brilliant in colour, and in
spring bears its deep red blossoms. The Sugar Maple
(Acer saccharinum) is one of the brightest of American
trees, and is much valued, both for its wood and for the
beauty of its form and foliage, but it is not so free in our
country. The purple-leaved forms of the Sycamore,
and also of the Norway Maple, are worth having, but
only when they may be raised from seed. If we had
but the Tree Maples alone, and excluding every golden
variety or variegation, we could make our woodland
into a noble picture of fine colour in autumn.

Willows. Taking them all the year round, I know
nothing quite so refined in colour as the Tree Willows,
and all the better if grouped — by streams, in moist
woods, and in rich bottom soil. They differ each month
in effect, and are always good in colour, even when bare
of leaves. The best is the White Willow (Salix alba),
which grows into a forest tree ; the Red and the Yellow
Willows, by botanists supposed to be forms of the White
Willow, are distinct from it for woodland planting; all
give good colour and are easily raised. I should like to
see these Tree Willows grown from seed, if possible, as

126 Woodland fine in colour

all cuttings are against us for the woodland; but the
facility of increase from cuttings is so easy that it is
difficult to get them otherwise.

Poplars. The Poplars of Europe and North America
give us clouds of soft colour in the autumn, and are
also beautiful in the budding and early-leafing stages.
The White and Grey Poplars of Europe are distinct in
colour. Some of the kinds are little planted yet, such
as P. trichocarpa, which also gives fine colour at different
seasons, as do the American Poplars, the Black Poplar,
and our nativ Aspen.

Ash. Among the summer-leafing trees few are finer
than the American and other exotic kinds of Ash, of
which the high value may be well suggested to us by
the qualities of our own. The leaves of many are fine
in form, and they take a good colour ; but when tried so
far in our land they are usually from over-transplanted
or worked plants in nurseries. As woodland trees they
deserve to be raised from seed, and sown, if possible,
where they are to grow. Among those that might be
tried are lentiscifolia, Oregona} Mariesi, pennsylvanica,
and rhyncophylla.

Beech. The greatest mass of fine woodland colour in
our own islands from Scotland southwards we have from
the Beech. The tree has produced varieties popular
in gardens, such as the dark-leaved forms, which we
must guard against overdoing, avoiding them wholly
where increased by grafting or any other mode save the
natural one. Some of these dark -leaved forms come from
seed, and in that case are worth planting for variety sake.

Tupelo-tree (Nyssa). These trees, which attain to con-
siderable size in North America, take on a fine colour
in our country, even away from the swamps and wet

Woodland fine in colour 127

land in which they thrive at home, and their effect is
often beautiful. There are several kinds, all thriving in
swampy soil and wet bottoms.

Thorns (Crataegus). One of the most charming bits
of planting I ever did for colour was making field fences
of the Cockspur Thorn, which is not only that rare
thing, a good fence plant, but is very fine in colour ; in
autumn a rich brown, or, in a sunny autumn, red. When
such plants were sold by nurserymen singly they were
often grafted, and, therefore, useless. There have lately
been many Thorns found in America, some of which will
certainly be excellent for colour. In a collection of the
newer Thorns I have from the Arnold Arboretum at
Boston, nearly every kind showed good colour in early
November, 1906, though some are quite small as yet.

Sumachs (Rhus). These, although by no means so
much talked of as the Oaks, and neglected, are brilliant
in colour, and easily grown in any poor soils. The
Venetian Sumach is familiar in gardens, and with its
purple form is good in colour. The sturdy-growing
species with long pinnate leaves, such as the Stag's-
horn Sumach (R. typhina) from North America, with
Rhus Osbecki and R. succedanea from China and Japan,
vie with the simple-leaved bush forms and R. cotinoides
in their vivid hues, while the brightest among them are
rivalled by the curious climbing Poison Ivy, which in
American woods clothes the stems of lofty trees. R.
glabra is brilliant in colour in autumn.

Birches. The beauty of our European Birch, marked
as it is, need not shut our eyes to the good colour of
the American Birches, which show so well in our
country, the Canoe Birch and the Paper Birch giving
good colour with us. One other species is conspicuous

128 Woodland fine in colour

in the woods in winter, the Yellow Birch (B. luted]
having its trunk covered with loose flakes of silvery
bark. The stems of Birches are often beautiful in colour
after the leaves have fallen, the fine effect of this being
best seen where the trees are massed in groves.

The Ginkgo-tree. This lovely tree, as yet not much
planted as a woodland tree, is very beautiful in colour
in autumn, and, indeed, at all times. Though slow to
start, there is no reason why it should not be grown in
sheltered parts of woods in good soil, and as often as
may be in alluvial bottoms.

Buckeye or Horse Chestnut. These have much beauty
of foliage in autumn, although, except in the case of the
common kind, we seldom enjoy it. I remember in
California being much struck with the colour of the
Californian kind, which growing in groups on sandy
soils gave one the effect of rocks, owing to their
whitened foliage.

Alder. Often trees which do not strike us by their
showy colour in autumn may have much refined beauty
of colour, as in the case of the Common Alder in the
early part of the year, the effect being always better
where the trees are massed in natural or picturesque
ways ; and other Alders are worth a place too.

Vines (Vitis). Although Vines are not forest trees
they may be very well associated with them, especially
the greater Vines, such as Coignetiae and Thunbergi,
which will grow to 40 or 50 feet high on trees, and give
superb effects. There are also new Vines from China
and Japan, which will help us very much in this way.
What used to be called the Virginian Creepers are now
united with the Vines, and are also getting richer in
kinds. Running up trees, they produce a fine effect

Woodland fine in colour 129

without much injury to the tree. They are so easily
propagated, that one could easily indulge in a little
experiment with them on tall trees. If we grow the
bolder and finer Vines we may enjoy colour pictures
better than any garden can give, just when gardens
fade away before autumnal storms.

Guelder Rose. There is nothing prettier, either in
flower, fruit, or leaf, than the common Viburnum of our
woods, which is not always to be found in nurseries, but
is very easily raised. It is a brilliant shrub for under-
growth, especially by streams and in moist places. It
belongs to a great family of shrubs, many of which are
fine in colour of leaf, but not usually plentiful enough
for extensive planting.

Dogwoods. These are of high value as undergrowth.
The white-fruited Siberian Dogwood is the most con-
spicuous as well as the most generally grown. The
deep colour of its branches, which becomes richer as
spring approaches, gives a brilliant effect at any time.
Next to the Siberian species Cornus stolonifera possesses
bright colour in a high degree, and the branches of the
Silky Cornel (C. sericea) have a more or less purplish hue.

Azaleas. These give lovely colour in almost any
situation, and where we have them plentiful to plant as
undergrowth, as at Dropmore, they are charming in
colour of flower and leaf too.

Snowy Mespilus. This early-blooming American tree,
very hardy and free in our country, has fine colour
charm in autumn. It is common in nurseries. Others
of the genus are also good, but not so easily got in
quantity, and the same may be said of nearly all related
trees, as the Medlar and Pear.

Parrottia. This Persian tree is little planted in our

K

130 Woodland fine in colour

country yet, but it is splendid in colour, even in poor,
stiff soils.

Spindle-tree. Our native Spindle-tree (Euonymus euro*
paeus) and the south European E. latifolius are brilliant,
and so is E. Thunbergianus.

The Sweet Gum (Liquidambar styraciflua), whose
leaves are usually of a deep purplish red, lit up more or
less with orange, is one of the brightest coloured of all
our trees in autumn.

Tulip-tree (Liriodendron tulipiferum). This, one of the
most beautiful of North American trees, is often suffused
with a rich golden glow, a fine tree making quite a feature
in the landscape.

Limes. The Limes are often pleasant in colour, but
they are a neglected race. The Tree Limes should be
more thought of, particularly the American Lime, or
Basswood, and, better still, the Silver Lime of eastern
Europe.

Hickories, Walnuts, and Winged Walnuts. The
Hickories are often very soft and fine in colour; but
they are neglected in our country, as are the Walnuts
and the elegant Winged Walnuts (Pterocarya), these
all thriving in open, warm soils.

Larches. The European Larch is one of the most
precious trees ever introduced to our islands, and is
beautiful in colour, one may say, throughout the year,
though most showy in November. The Japanese Larch,
a little different in hue, is quite as good. There are
other great Larches we hear of, but unfortunately they
are not plentiful enough for woodland work.

CHAFER XVI

AVOIDABLE WASTE IN PLANTING

EVERYTHING which tends to simplify planting is a
gain, and much of the work given to it is needless and
wasteful, particularly trenching and draining — two costly
labours. I live in a cool country with a wet soil, and
never drain for any kind of planting in woods, but
adapt the trees to the soil, which is the true way.
There are trees, American and European, that will
almost stand in water and be none the worse for it.

Another costly and needless labour is trenching.
I have young woods of Pine planted in poor fields not
of very good soil, and people say they have never seen
woods more vigorous for their age, yet the ground was
neither trenched nor dug for them. The poor hill-lands
that are now recognized as worth planting seldom need
draining, as they are often naturally drained. One of
the pleas for planting such lands is that it arrests denu-
dation and conserves the moisture and fertility of the
soil. And even where the soil is too wet much can be
done to drain it by a good choice of kinds — Poplars,
Willows, and Spruce are good drainers.

Draining. In certain cases, owing to a uniform low-
ness of surface, draining may be needed, but in much
forest work it is not. Light sandy soils and hill soils
seldom need draining, except when they lie upon a hard
pan, such as is here and there found in peaty districts,

K 2

132 Avoidable waste in planting

and where the water stands however light the rainfall
may be. Where the surface soil in such cases is not
deep, and an outfall can be found — not an easy matter
on level tracts — the surface water can be led off by
open drains, but when the peat is deep the water will
not subside below the drain levels.

Some of the best German foresters hold that in many
soils the best system is that of having trees of different
ages, different kinds, and different times of cutting, and
of planting the trees according to soil and situation. It
is certainly a better way than the level mixture of trees
which has to adapt itself to all conditions. The massing
way also leads to beauty, as by its means we keep and
accentuate any varied incidents of the surface. Planting
Austrian Pine, Larch, Scotch Fir, and Beech on the
drier ground, Spruce, Sitka Spruce, and Douglas Fir in
the sheltered and moist hollows, Oak, Ash, Sycamore,
and Elm on the cool ground, and Poplar, Willow, and
Alder wherever the soil is deep and moist, is a better
plan than the mixing together on the same soil of kinds
no two of which are alike in their wants.

Trenching. Trenching does not add to the staple of
poor soils such as are generally planted with forest
trees, useful though it may be in rich garden ground
where a rank, quick growth is sought. Even if we can
face the great cost of trenching, the labour is not always
to be had. I have seen a country-side denuded of
labourers in order to trench ground for planting, and
the result no better than could have been got by a
plough run through the land, or even if the trees had
been planted in the sod. One of the best things about
a wood is that it finds its own soil, and if we plant
closely and well, and choose the right trees, it very soon

Avoidable waste in planting 133

begins to do this, as many of the finest natural woods
have done for ages. Woods planted a dozen years will
be found to have a good deposit of leaf-soil — this is in
cases where the tree suits the ground and where the
young trees are thick enough. In the open, common
loose way of planting we may look in vain for any such
deposit, as the Grass absorbs it all. The effect of a heavy
fall of leaf-soil from the lower branches of Pine and
other trees is that, in hot and dry seasons, when farmers
and gardeners are at their wits' end to get water, the
wood is cool and safe.

Trees as soil-makers. To the pleasure-ground planter
these ideas will seem folly ; he considers all such costly
work as drainage and trenching essential to the success
of his shrubbery. From his point of view, which is to
get a rapid growth in the rampant growers that he
usually plants, this may be desirable ; but where is the
shrubbery that can show as good a growth as many
a woodland or forest ? It does not exist. Trees will
often grow well in abandoned scoriae, mine-rubbish,
and other ugly earth surfaces. But the planter of
such surfaces must look a little to kinds and their habits
as well as to soil. In the planting of lands of no
( quality ' or poor situation the kind of tree is important,
as each has its preferences, and though many hardy
trees will grow in almost any situation, it by no means
follows that we get good timber from them. Oak, Ash,
and nearly every hard-wood tree will grow almost any-
where, but not always be worth cutting. Oak is much
affected by the quality of the land, and, even where it
grows rapidly and large, is often not as good timber as
that of smaller trees. Spruce on a wet western hill-
side will make growth such as we never see in southern

134 Avoidable waste in planting

Britain, and our quick-grown Scotch Fir is never so
valuable for timber as the same tree of the mountains
of western Europe. Rainfall too has much effect on
trees, and also elevated situations; in such we might
venture to plant trees which would be started too early
by the milder climate of the south. In the wood we
need no manure cart, and in the hottest years the trees
maintain their freshness. Vast areas of European
mountains are covered with Pines, although there is
scarcely a trace of soil over the ribs of the mountain.
Those who are now seeking to plant with a garland of
trees the hideous refuse-heaps of the Black Country
are right in their efforts ; however poor the land may
be when the trees are first planted, the annual layer of
fallen leaves soon forms a deposit of mould, between
which and the natural soil the roots of the trees are
always found in great numbers. The older the wood
the deeper the leaf-soil : in old Beech and other forests
it is extraordinary to what an extent this leaf-mould has
accumulated. If it were not for it, generation after
generation of the same tree could not have succeeded
each other on the same ground. Mountains which
unplanted would have been almost bared to the rock
by constant denudation, have a good soil of leaf-mould ;
the same may be said of Fir and Spruce woods, in
which the fallen Pine-needles have formed a bed of
black mould. Tree crops manure themselves and
enrich the ground on which they grow, a fact that
should never be lost sight of in considering the planting
of poor lands. Many do not plant, fearing the cost
of labour and plants, and all would do well to con-
sider the wastefulness of planting as usually done and
the heavy labours undergone for no lasting gain.

Avoidable waste in planting 135

By raising from seed where the trees are to grow, by
the use of young plants only, by avoiding trenching and
digging, by close planting at first, by keeping rabbits
and hares out of the ' young planting ' for at least seven
years, and by thought as to the nature of the soil in
relation to the trees we plant on it, the bugbear of need-
less cost may be laid low.

Be ready. Any spirited planter will care to dwell least
on the losses he has had through delays in planting
after the plants come owing to the ground not being
ready. However young and fit the trees, they suffer if
kept too long in the little bundles in which they are
sent, nor do they improve by being put in stock. The
older the trees the more the danger. Delays through
frost we cannot avoid, but in various other ways we
can guard against loss. The right way is to prepare
the ground beforehand in the spring, summer, or early
autumn ; and if wiring or other defence against ground
game is needed, let that also be done and the piece of
ground to be planted settled and ready. If in fallow
throughout the summer previous to planting that would
be an advantage. Then when the plants come to hand
they are taken direct to the place and put in at once.
In this way many failures can be avoided. Choose or
order the plants early in the autumn, but do not let
them be sent from a distance before the leaves have
fallen, as it sometimes causes them to heat on the way.
Where, as in my case, we attempt to convert under-
wood into high wood, the only way out of it I know is
to plant good strong saplings— say 6 to 8 feet — but in
getting these from a distance, which we often have to
do, it is well to get them from nurseries where we know
they are transplanted, and above all not too old or

136 Avoidable waste in planting

'staggy', especially in the case of Oaks, or we are
certain to lose many of them.

The greatest loss in planting is perhaps in the ordering
of ordinary trees, which most people plant 2 feet or
3 feet high. If there is any difficulty in transit, resulting
in the roots getting too dry, &c., or delays through frost,
&c., you may put it down that the losses will be three
times as great as in the case of young and right-sized
trees for planting in new ground. These should never
exceed two or three years old.

CHAPTER XVII

THE WOODLAND GARDEN

IN several country places I have lately seen woods of
singular tree beauty — woods with all the natural advan-
tages of soil, air, and country, and well placed near the
house— a charm which does not always occur. There
was all the dignity and grace of trees planted with loving
care by past owners ; but such woodland is very often
neglected until ugly plants such as Nettles, Dog's
Mercury, and, most hateful of all, the Common Elder
and Privet take possession.

In such woods covert is sought for game, shelter and
other ends, and there is no reason why it should not
take a beautiful form. No situations about a country
house offer such opportunity for beauty as these wood-
lands, where we can mass and enjoy many of the most
beautiful of native and other shrubs for which there is
not always room in the garden. They would be far
better in the woodland garden than in the usual mixed
shrubbery; and while good wholesome undergrowth
does not interfere with the trees, but rather helps them,
the growth of weeds and Grass rankling over the ground
is hurtful in many ways. Some of the finest natural
woods have a natural undergrowth of evergreen shrubs,
as for instance in the Californian forests with their
undergrowth of lovely evergreens, the trees rising with
clean stems far above them.

The first aim should be to get rid of the weedy and

138 The woodland garden

noxious enemies by light grubbing, and then plant in
bold free masses things that will fight the weed. I
know of nothing that cleans the ground below it more
thoroughly than the Red Dogwood; its foliage is so
close and it gives bright winter-effect in wet places
beside streams and ponds, and will also grow away from
water.

Our native Holly, Box, and Yew make much more
beautiful and effective groups than the weedy shrubs
which usually have possession. The common evergreen
Barberry is a beautiful covert shrub, with its foliage all
through the winter and its fragrant blooms in spring,
but it should be held together in natural masses, and
close enough to keep the ground clean. The common
way of having coarse Laurels clipped down to one level
is ugly, and there are so many things that give a very
fine undergrowth without clipping. The large Par-
tridge-berry (Gaultheria Shallon) of North America, as it
may be seen at Coolhurst — what an excellent under-
growth it makes, and yet how little grown !

Evergreen Barberries might alternate with our com-
mon native Barberry, so brilliant in fruit, and wide
masses of Aucuba and Yellow Azaleas, now so easily
raised. Such excellent evergreen covert plants as
Cunningham's White Rhododendron can be bought on
their own roots. Rhododendrons are a host in them-
selves, but there is too much of the dull ponticum. We
should encourage the bright-coloured kinds such as
Jacksonii, and never put in a grafted plant. There are
splendid kinds in the country if people will only layer
them, or even allow them to layer themselves, as they
often will when let alone. Kinds good in colour can
be picked out in flowering time at the lowest rate the

The woodland garden 1 39

nursery trade offers. Only hardy things should be
used, and in southern places we may have a little more
variety of evergreen undergrowth. Some of the new
Bamboos would help very much for effect, such as
palmata, which keeps the ground clean and is fine in
habit. In open and poor soils the Heaths would tell
well, such as the Cornish Heath, and the Common
Heather in its stoutest varieties. Sweetbriers, Wild
Roses, and Brambles, would naturally be welcomed,
and it would be well to encourage native bushes like
Viburnum, Sloe, and the beautiful Spindle-tree (Euo-
nymus europaeus), and plants such as Solomon's Seal
and the Ferns, which often form a pretty undergrowth
in woods. Wherever natural covert exists, as it often
does in large woods in the shape of tall evergreen
Sedges like Carex paniculata, or masses of Bracken,
it should be kept, as there is no better covert.

The planting of covert had better be done from early
autumn until March or April, but much may be done
throughout the year in clearing the ground and getting
rid of weedy plants. That is even better done in
summer, as we are then more certain to make an end
of them than in winter. When planting Holly in places
overrun by rabbits it will be necessary to wire, and if
we plant in large, bold masses, as we ought, the wiring
is easier. Happily rabbits do not attack Box, which is
a great gain when seeking covert for hungry soils or
poor dry bluffs.

CHAPTER XVIII

FENCING FOR WOODLAND

AN immense amount of energy in our country is
given to fencing, which is wholly avoided in some other
lands. Our way of keeping stock in the open air instead
of in sheds, and the abundance of game destructive to
young trees, makes fencing a necessity, and to simplify
it as far as may be and to make it enduring is worth
thinking about. Many act as if the iron and wire fences
were the best— a serious error, as the wood should
fence itself, and there are no fencing plants so good as
those which grow naturally in woodland, such as Quick.
The worst of all are iron and wire fences, which give no
shelter, and moreover are ugly and dangerous.

To reduce the extent of fencing. This is one of the
motives which should lead us to plant in more visible
and natural masses. In the common ring, specimen,
and spinney planting there is often more fence visible
than plants. No artificial fence that man can invent is
half as simple, enduring, easy to keep up, or effective
as a Quick hedge set on a turf bank. The cost of this
should be less than that of an iron fence. Even in
badly-infested places, when we are obliged to use an
iron fence to support barbed wire, we should always
plant a Quick fence inside it to provide for the future
fencing of the wood. The weak point about the Quick
fence is that the plants are usually so small that it is
expensive to protect them. In many places it would be

Fencing for woodland 141

an excellent way to lay down an acre of Quick and let
the plants get into a bushy state, and then we should
only have to send the cart for stout bushes, which
would at once form a fence. I know nothing in wood-
land work that would be more useful than such a store
of Quick. We can buy small Quick everywhere, but it
is difficult to get it really strong, and impossible to get
the bushes a yard high and nearly as much through,
unless we grow it ourselves.

Some years ago I made a fence with old bushy
Quick, planting it on the turf bank common in the
district; the tough bushes were placed close together
and formed a fence at once, but as there were large
bullocks nearly always in the pasture on one side, it
was thought best to slip a single line of the slender and
waste tops from a Larch plantation through the bushes
at 2 feet from the ground. The fence made itself at
once, and no bullock ever got through or injured it.
The expense of fencing the Quick itself was got rid of;
an important point if we think of the trouble saved in
this way. But to carry out this plan it is essential to
put out young Quick and let them grow 3 feet or more
high, and the stouter the better. They transplant easily
and without risk at any time in autumn or winter.

Simplify the fencing. In planting rough corners of
fields running into or near a wood we may often simplify
the fencing by taking a short or easy line, so that the
fences within the line become useless, and if among
these useless fences there is one of Quick which is not
very old, it is often well to move the plants to the new
fence after cutting them down one-half their height.
Having had occasion to move a bank and fence of not
very old Quick, I levelled the bank and took the

142 Fencing for woodland

plants elsewhere for fencing. The following year the
roots of the Quick left in the ground began to come up
and make nice little plants, and in another year there
was quite a strong line of Quick in the line of the old
fence.

The best plants to use. There has been much talk .of
the Cherry Plum as a fence plant, but it .is inferior to
Quick in endurance, and in every way. I have much
greater faith in some of the American Hawthorns, such
as the Scarlet and Cockspur Thorns, which are well
armed, tough, sturdy, and fine in colour in autumn. The
difficulty is to get a stock of them, as nurserymen are
not yet aware of their value, and they are mostly grown
for pleasure grounds, and grafted, which means that
the native Quick will in time kill the foreigner. I have
used some thousands of the Sweetbrier for fencing,
and with excellent effect. In one way it is better than
Quick, as cattle will not touch it, and creatures of any
kind give it a wide berth. A rough woodland fence
made of Sweetbrier and Quick, or Cockspur Thorn,
is the best possible protection against stock. Barbed
wire is not half as fierce as old Sweetbrier, which is
impassable to the boldest boy, who would laugh at the
idea of barbed wire stopping him.

Let the woodland fence grow freely, and only cut it
down every ten years or so ; such bold fences are far
better in their effect round the woodland than small
trim fences, while they may be more effective against
stock, and are often as pretty as any garden with wreaths
of Honeysuckle, Clematis, and Wild Rose.

Woods without fencing. The needlessness of any
kind of fencing in established woodlands is proved by
the millions of acres of forest in many parts of middle

Fencing for woodland 143

and northern Europe, on mountain or plain, which are
without fence of any kind, young or old trees as they
come, boldly fringing river, rocky valley, or plain. No
stiff or hard lines anywhere ; the wood gracing the near
land as the clouds grace the sky, while far away the
hills massed and crested with Pines show, fold beyond
fold, back into the delicate distance, in fine harmony in
all lights, but loveliest when the sun bids the woods
good night in a sea of golden-purple air. If it be well
to be free of living fences of Wild Rose, May, and
Holly, how much more the costly iron or wire fence, so
ugly in any place where we seek beauty of wood or
landscape ? This freedom from the ceaseless care and
cost of fences is not only for those who plant for beauty,
but the men who look to their woods for profit only in
doing their work in the simplest way find the palm of
beauty too. But this cannot be where the underwood
plan is an endless annoyance, with its cutting up of
woods and rides, the underwood when cut in recent
years remaining in the woods for more than a year after
the cutting — a nuisance for various reasons. If we wish
to preserve some underwood it is easy to keep it near
the centre of the wood, and so dispense with fencing
from cattle, or we may even grow it as at present with-
out sacrificing all our woodland scenery and any hope
of profit from woodland. Our way in Britain of planting
in skinny strips, instead of massing the wood naturally,
very much adds to the cost and ugliness of the iron
fence, both sides of the narrow strip being often fenced
with iron, and on some estates the money spent on this
rubbish of iron and wire would suffice to plant all the
poor land of a parish.

No hard line. These words are written in a grassy

144 Fencing for woodland

glade of about a dozen acres set in the woods of the
Bohemian hills. Falling gently to the west it is em-
bosomed in close-set young trees — Spruce, Birch, Scotch
and Silver Fir ; there is no hard line to be seen ; the
glade is fringed as it might be in a natural forest. It is
as easy to mow as it would be if fenced in the stiffest
way, and it could be grazed without danger, as there is
no underwood near. The work of the woodman around
the glade (and there is a good deal of winter work in
woods where tall trees are set close) is far more simple
than where, as in many parts of Britain, access to every
copse and wood is barred with fencing. For days we
pass through such woodland and never see a fence, and
when we leave the massed mountain woods, and go into
the open plain, with smaller woods here and there,
cresting a hill or making the best of a vein of poor land,
it is just the same ; there is no fence ; cattle or men
may take shelter or shade ; and as the margin of the
plantation is often free and' varied, the effect is far
better than when the wood is held fast within a fence.
Certainly many of these are old woods; and when
planting in an open country, with cattle grazing on all
sides, we cannot hope to get free at once from a great
evil ; but if we plant only vigorous trees, a few years'
good growth will make them safe, and tall trees do not
tempt cattle as the shoots of the underwood do. If
there be grazing creatures about, why should not the
cool shade of the wood be free to them on hot days
and its warm shelter on wintry ones, if no harm come
from it ?

What to do with iron fencing. When our eyes are
opened to the ugliness and danger of iron fencing, the
question arises as to how it can be turned to account in

Fencing for woodland 145

other ways. The danger of wire fencing round pasture
fields is evident, and its ugliness appalling in the fore-
ground of fair landscapes. Live fences do away with
the need of it in either case, but as there are miles of it
in most districts to be got rid of, the best use for it is
the protection of young plantations in woods. Most
of our country is so infested with ground game that
planting is impossible unless we protect the little trees.
It is bad enough to lose Scotch Fir, Larch, and the
commoner trees, after having had the trouble and cost
of planting them, but when it is a question of the rarer
trees, often difficult to procure, then we ought to pro-
tect thoroughly until they are large enough to take care
of themselves. For common trees we may do what is
needed with wire only, but there is the danger that with
heavy snow it may be jumped by rabbits, or broken
down by stock, gamekeepers, and others, and so fail us
at a critical time. In choice planting the best way is to
surround our plantations with spare iron fencing, and
then wire. The most difficult spots to plant are patches
in old woods, often of underwood which has ceased to
be of any use. Planting choice little trees in such
woods is out of the question, so I have fenced with iron
an acre of such woodland which had nothing left in it
but stubs and a few Birch and other trees of little value.
The iron fence is wired 3^ feet high, and within is a
plantation of the Western Hemlock Spruce (Abies
Mertensiana) and with it a sprinkling of Japanese Larch.
This iron fencing is so placed as to be hardly visible
from the rides near, and it is always safe against animals
and other interlopers.

CHAPTER XIX

THINNING WOODS

THIS will probably be for many years to come the
most important question for the planter. So far English
planters have usually taken a view of it wholly distinct
from that taken in Germany and France. Our under-
woods system and the notion that every fine tree should
be set out as a specimen tends to this most unfortunate
end. German and French forestry cannot be said to
follow any one settled plan, because soils and trees and
conditions vary so much that a great variety of wood-
land enters continental forestry. But one thing is
common to all their systems, and that is that the trees
stand shoulder to shoulder ; and in German forests, in
the case of some kinds of trees, we find ourselves in
darkness, even on a sunny day, owing to the closeness of
the wood. The sun getting into the wood and the rain-
absorbing Grass covering the floor of the wood would
work havoc, and it is not very different in our country.
In those forests not only do we see the trees growing
close together and shading and sheltering each other,
but other young trees of the kinds that will thrive in
shade beneath them in active and beautiful life. The
essential idea is to keep the overhead canopy intact,
never to let the soil of the wood get dried up, and to
keep down the Grass, which always comes if we let our
wood get thin.

Thinning woods 147

There is an error, however, in our planting which
ought to be mentioned, and which makes thinning a
much more onerous thing, and that is the nursery way
of planting trees too closely — e. g. i ft. or 15 in.
apart, of which we have seen many examples. In
such cases the trees grow so weakly that they never
form a good self-supporting stem, and in snow and other
storms may be blown over. Where trees are planted in
this way thinning is much more onerous, and the same
applies when we raise trees from seed in the fields
where they are to grow. Trees should never be planted
closer than about 4 ft. apart. That space allows each
little tree to make a sturdy stem and become a useful
tree before there is any need to thin. In those countries
where thinning is best understood it is only done when
the thinnings are useful. Weak or dead trees, or trees
overtopped by their more vigorous neighbours, are cut
away, but never so that the overhead canopy is inter-
fered with. If the canopy be broken from disease or
accident or storm the remedy is to plant young trees
beneath which will bear shade. Thus the massed trees
remain, and the heads of these are always seeking the
light ; and thus the mass of rapid lengthening stems is
maintained, and the side branches drop off as they
decay, leaving strong trees. Thus the Beech, which
branches so freely with us, may be seen with clean
straight stems 130 ft. high. The same result could
be easily obtained in our country, where these trees do
as well as in the north of France or Germany.

The time of thinning is an important consideration.
Generally, thinning is much more active in the early life
of trees than in their nearly mature state. When woods
of the ordinary Pines of Europe are planted 4 ft. apart,

L 2,

148 Thinning woods

as they ought to be, there is no need for thinning for,
say, fourteen years.

After that time one may take out the beaten trees
and the wrong kinds that have got in from seed or
otherwise. The first thinning will have little more to
do than this, and the wood will not be very valuable,
but later on the trees will begin to take some value.
It should be remembered that, however we may want
a close canopy overhead, each tree must in the end have
room to attain its full development. The baby Pine we
can hardly see in the Grass will after fifty years or so
want its 20 ft. in ordinary level land. For though we
may see Pines on their native mountains growing closer
than this, we have to average the quality of the poor
land which trees are so often planted in. We must also
think what the trees are grown for, whether firewood,
pit-props, masts, or the best class of timber for con-
struction work. Valuable trees like the Oak would
be reduced one-half in value by neglect to give them
sufficient space to grow in. In Britain generally trees
have three times more space allotted them than they
need have.

CHAPTER XX

GRAFTING AND ITS EFFECTS ON TREES

IN buying a number of Willows some years ago,
I was happy enough to find one of unusual grace — a
weeping form of the Yellow Willow (Salix vitellind).
This Willow is graceful in its habit, but the weeping
variety I liked for its exquisite beauty, fine colour
throughout the year, and the usefulness of its abundant
shoots, which tie like a good twine. I was fortunate in
getting several plants on their natural roots, every one
of which throve, and in every stage looked well. Then,
seeking more, a number were sent me grafted on the
Common Ozier, and in the case of these a very different
set of circumstances arose. In the first place, you do
not get a healthy tree, because the Ozier is not nearly
so stately or fine as the Yellow Willow and does not
form a good stock. There is a hard and ugly angle
between the stiff stem of the stock and the abundant
branches of the Yellow Willow. Death begins very
soon, and comes in every case, if the shoots are not
removed. The appearance of the grafted plants as com-
pared with the other is simply piteous, and the plants
are not only worthless, but a nuisance, because after
a few years the stocks (of which we have already thou-
sands in the woods everywhere) will become weedy
trees out of place. It will at once be seen from this
how much is lost by grafting trees in the case of

150 Grafting and its effects on trees

Willows. By the labour in removing suckers (which is
not likely to be done beside ponds and lakes that are
out of the garden) we not only lose our precious tree
and its beauty of form everywhere, but we also estab-
lish a lot of wretched trees — the very last thing we
should want, perhaps— in a beautiful situation. This
happened in almost every case of the grafted Willows,
so that round my lakes I have a set of dying Willows or
Willows arising from the stocks of kinds already dead.
All Willows are easily grafted, and some of our finest
Willows are usually sent out by the trade from cuttings,
and, therefore, are safe ; but the moment a Willow has
any pretence of being rare, new, or graceful, then, for
the sake of increasing it in the cheapest way, it is
worked on the Common Withy or Ozier, and every one
of the beautiful Willows so worked is sure to be lost.
There is not one of these Willows but could be easily
increased from cuttings, layers, or seeds. It is very
likely that many beautiful Willows have been lost from
the practice of grafting; and it is a notable loss, because
many of the Willows are among the most beautiful of
plants, bushes, and trees we could possibly have beside
or near water. The lesson of all this is that people
should ask for what they want and refuse to have a
grafted Willow on any condition. I have a line on each
side of a stream of what is called the American Weep-
ing Willow, a very graceful one. For several years at
first they looked distinct and even beautiful; but, in
spite of continual repression of the suckers of the
Ozier on which they are grafted, these have already
got the upper hand, and the once graceful and distinct
little line of grey weeping trees is now a hideous
funeral procession— at the bottom a thick cloud of half-

Grafting and its effects on trees 151

decayed wood and above the Common Ozier, not half as
pretty as it is in its natural growth. If our planting
were confined to garden planting it might then be
possible to control this, but the moment we begin to
plant in any right and bold way we must get out of the
garden, and watching every tree for suckers is hope-
less. A very little trouble would have sufficed to put
this graceful Weeping Willow on its natural roots,
which would have been a good state for its natural life ;
but now I not only lose my trees, but have to grub up
many Oziers out of place, which is not by any means an
easy task.

Among the most beautiful medium-sized trees of the
great Rose family are the Thorns ; whether for flower,
colour, or fruit in autumn, or for their forms, they are
very beautiful, and none the less so for their relation-
ship to our common May, though differing from it in
their times of flower and in many ways in effect. No
trees produce seed more freely than these, but owing to
the facility of grafting in nurseries where we buy them
they are nearly all put on the common native kinds, on
which are also grafted the double and coloured varieties
of our own country. Those growing on the parent
plant are safe enough, but when we come to graft the
various American and Asiatic kinds on the British tree
a different result comes about : the native Thorn gradu-
ally becomes the master, and instead of a collection of
interesting trees we find that we have simply one
common kind. There is a difference of season and time
of starting the saps, which may be the cause ; but what-
ever it is, it is a vicious system to put quite hardy trees
from countries quite different from ours to grow on
other plants. The simple result of doing so is that

152 Grafting and its effects on trees

many kinds introduced for many years past are lost to
us or rarely seen.

North America was long a rich source of such plants,
but apparently there are many more kinds there than
was ever suspected to be the case, and it behoves us in
the case of the best to always secure them as seedling
plants, which certainly cannot be very difficult. Given
the natural root, we have the plant as long as we care to
grow it. The greater failure, however, arises when
great forest Pines of north-western America are grown
in any way but from seed. The rare Pines used to
be grafted, and this perhaps was excusable when they
first came over, but never in the case of any woodland
planting. Cuttings are nearly as bad. Owing to the
facility of increase of some Cypress-like trees of the
Pacific coast of North America, such as Lawson's
Cypress and the Giant Thuja, these were frequently
grown in nurseries from cuttings, which is probably the
cause of the unsatisfactory bushy growth of some of
these trees, which, instead of arising as erect stems as
in their own country, break out into it may be eight
or ten stems on one tree. It is not difficult to get such
trees from seed. In any other way they should never
be grown.

CHAPTER XXI

ENGLISH NAMES FOR TREES

LORD ANNESLEY'S book on his collection of trees and
shrubs presents us, as so many books do, with a whole
set of Latin names for each tree, no care being taken to
find an English name for any of them— not a difficult
task. This is merely following the conventional way of
botanists, who imagine that all men take the same interest
in Latin names as they do themselves, but the facts are
the other way. Most people are interested mainly in
the beauty and uses of things, and to them names in an
unknown tongue are of no meaning and often a source
of ridicule. These names may even be used in such a
way as to be a bar to knowledge, as is certainly the case
in our country. In France and Germany it is otherwise,
as their books on garden and woodland work give the
native name of each tree or plant, which does not bar
the use of the Latin name in its right place. Names are
symbols adopted for convenience, and of less importance
than the things to which they relate, as is shown by the
fact that many people forget names, while retaining a
clear memory of things. The multitude of Latin names
is an unnecessary obstacle to women and children, and
men occupied with outdoor work. On the other hand,
good English names often tell a great deal to simple
people, e. g. such names as Servian Spruce and Lebanon
Cedar. The Latin names are often hideous in structure,

1 54 English names for trees

and often (as scholars tell us) invented by those whose
learning is at fault.

There are also numberless false names, like Glypto-
strobus and Retinospora — the unfortunate name for the
Great Japanese Cypress (C. obtusa), which is still kept up
in books and lists. If the true Latin names are confusing,
how much more the false and needless ones. Then
there is the endless multiplication of varieties with
cumbrous Latin names, of which we see an outrageous
example in the Kew List of Conifers, pages of which are
given to variegated (i. e. diseased) and deformed sports,
which are mere garden forms, valueless as trees. If
these varieties are kept at all, they are unworthy of
Latin names. Another evil resulting from this is that
many readers of catalogues take all Latin names as of
equal importance. Hence, even in the best conditions,
we see distorted and poor forms as often as true trees,
and a spotty and bad effect is given to collections, the
very opposite of what growers of great trees should
expect, and may easily obtain.

A good English name should have precedence of all
others for general use. Trees covering vast regions and
of high value, like the Western Hemlock Spruce, deserve
to be known by English names, which yet are often
omitted in books and catalogues dealing with such trees.
An Englishman speaking to English people should be
able to find in his own tongue names for all things
to which he needs to refer. There is no forest
tree of Europe, Asia, or America for which a good
English name might not be used, and, once generally
adopted, we should not then care so much what each
succeeding botanist might do towards inventing new
Latin names or hunting up old ones.

English names for trees 155

Even those who feel the need of English names for
garden and woodland things are, perhaps, too apt to
assume that the systematic Linnaean name is the only
one with any claim to science. But that is clearly an
error, as many of our English names are very much
older, more interesting, and have been bound up with the
history of our people and their language for ages. So
that the study of these names may be as much a part of
( science ' as any other. The botanical names of the
Linnaean system now followed have only been in use
during a few generations, and as such they have no more
claim to be exclusively ' scientific ' than many of the
names in our own language. Dr. C. A. Prior, author of a
good book on the popular names of British plants, says :
' There are botanists who look upon English names as
leading to confusion and a nuisance, and who would gladly
abandon them and ignore their existence. But this is
surely a mistake, for there will always be ladies and
others who, with the greatest zeal for the pursuit of
Natural History, have not had the opportunity of learn-
ing Greek or Latin, or have forgotten those languages,
and who will prefer to call a plant by a name that they
can pronounce and recollect. We need but to ask our-
selves what success would have attended the exertions
of the late excellent and benevolent Professor Henslow
among the pupils of his little village school if he had used
any names but the popular ones. Besides admitting to
the full all that can be urged against them from a purely
botanical point of view, we still may derive both pleasure
and instruction from tracing them back to their origin,
and reading in them the habits and opinions of former
ages. In following up such an analysis we soon find
that we are entering upon a higher region of literature —

156 English names for trees

the history of man's progress and the gradual develop-
ment of his civilization. Some of the plants that were
familiar to our ancestors in central Asia bear with us to
this day the very names they bore there, and as distinctly
intimate by them the uses to which they were applied,
and the degree of culture which prevailed where they
were given, as do those of the domestic affinities the
various occupations of the primaeval family/

Those who think that the accepted Latin names of our
own day are the only ones with any pretence to 'science '
may pause and reflect when they realize the age and use
of the name Oak in all northern writings. Thus in early
Anglo-Saxon we have ac and cec} in Scotch aik} in Old
Norse eik, in Swedish ek, in Danish and Icelandic eyk,
in Low German eek and eik, in German eiche, and in
Old High German eih. Our best names are ages older
than the Linnaean system, and Linnaeus did one foolish
thing in changing the beautiful old name of the Holly
(Aquifolium) to Ilex.

CHAPTER XXII

NATIONAL AND PUBLIC PARKS AND TREE PLANTING

IN a country like Great Britain, one of the best assets
of which is its natural beauty — a thing of value not only
to the natives but also to the many visitors who come
from the colonies and abroad— it is strange that the
question of great national parks has never arisen ; the
more so seeing that we have the finest opportunities for
securing them. Were our country like the plains of
the Danube or of Burgundy — levels rich in corn and
wine — it would be far less easy ; but vast tracts in the
British Isles are useless for agriculture or any kind of
industry. Stand among the mountains of Wales and
see their summits ranging one after the other like the
bare rounded masses of great elephants, and without
a tree upon them ! In Ireland there are beautiful but
bare ranges of mountains, often along a lovely sea-
shore, which might easily be secured for all time as
national parks. Whatever value they now possess for
agriculture, or for any local interest, they would afford
in no less degree as national parks, though the best way
to treat such places would be to leave them in their
natural state. There would be in this very little labour,
and certainly no ' laying out ' for public parks as we now
know them, so prosaic in design and so destructive of
beauty. England is richer than Wales, Scotland, or
Ireland in agricultural resources and in the value of its
land for residential usage, but even so it has vast

1 5 8 National and public parks and tree planting

areas of natural beauty in its moors and mountain
lands in the north and its downs in the south, which
might easily be given to this national object.

One of the greatest gains from national parks would
be in the opportunity they might afford for planting
our native trees in bold masses and forests. These
would be massed according to their needs as regards
soil and elevation, without any setting out or prim
fencing, or any like things usually thought necessary to
artificial planting, needless in a national park. In all the
more fertile parts and by streams and in valleys these
trees would serve the two purposes of showing their
natural form and values and of giving a home to wood-
land creatures.

The only difficulty would be to prevent these great
parks from becoming places of public resort merely,
which would destroy all the quiet for the creatures we
would encourage in them. This could be avoided by
selecting spots difficult of access and remote from the
busy centres, the woods to be closed at seasons of nest-
ing and breeding, and the merely curious excluded alto-
gether. Anything like formal roads and paths would
be avoided, and artists and students might then, under
regulation, be allowed access to them. Indeed, the value
of such places might almost be considered in relation
to their value for artists, as in a thickly peopled country
like ours the cultivated and residential land is likely to
become more and more inaccessible to them.

In the Nineteenth Century ', in his plea for a national
park for Scotland, Mr. Charles Stewart enumerated the
purposes of such parks as follows : —

(i) The preservation in its wild state of a large tract of
country possessing natural beauty, varied in its character and

National and public parks and tree planting 1 59

in its physical features, and combining, if possible, mountain,
valley, forest, moorland, lofty peak and rocky glen, greensward
and lake, river and burn, sea-cliffs and seashore. (2) The
strict preservation in them of specimens of all the indigenous
fauna of our country — the red deer, fallow deer, roe deer,
hare, badger, otter, wild cat, fox, and the minor quadrupeds,
the capercailzie, blackcock, moorfowl, golden eagle, raven,
and all the tribe of sea-eagle and sea-hawk, and the lesser
native birds and natural fishes. The enclosure once acquired,
to be in the words of the Act of Congress when instituting
the Yellowstone Park : ' for ever dedicated and set apart as
a public park or pleasuring ground/ Mr. Stewart points out
that there are estates and stretches of country or islands in
Argyll, Inverness, Ross, or Sutherland offering all the
charms that could be desired, and fringed by sea, sea-cliffs,
and seashore. The island of Jura (about 90,000 acres in
extent) or the island of Rum (about 43,000 acres) would
either of them make a noble national park. The enclosure
should not be less than 20,000 to 30,000 acres in extent, and
50,000 acres would not be excessive. There are deer forests
in Scotland which range from 40,000 to 80,000 acres; but
even with 10,000 acres, if the ground were sufficiently varied,
everything essential for the preservation of big game could
be secured. The direct advantages would be the preserving
intact of a large and wild tract of country of great natural
beauty, and of protecting it for ever from the inroads of the
speculator or the schemes of the mining and railway promoter
for public use, recreation, and resort, together with the benefit
to our food supply, to science, and to pleasure, which would
accrue from preserving the wild animals and birds of our
country and rescuing them from extinction. The more
mountainous and exposed such tracts, the more valuable they
would be for showing in bold plantations the alpine and other
trees suited for our islands.

London parks. No city has so much varied and
beautiful land for public enjoyment, and kept without
stint of men or material, as London. The climate is not

1 60 National and public parks and tree planting

against, but rather in favour of, all hardy trees and
shrubs, and the always welcome turf. The smoke of a
great city does not affect them so much, and that draw-
back will surely be got over before many years are past,
being a self-inflicted one. We know enough to be able
to get rid of the smoke of London in three years if the
( powers that be ' would only take it in hand. With these
advantages we ought not to lose the good of these
parks through inartistic design or stereotyped repetitions
of other ways in spite of differences in soil. Nothing
could be worse than that these parks should be devoted
to a single plan of ' floral decoration ' destructive of all
initiative on the part of the able men in charge. Nor
should they be planted with common nursery trees
which one may see by every suburban road. Not that
they should be botanic gardens, because we have already
the finest existing botanic garden at Kew ; but, having
such an ample area of space, they might show groups
and masses of the finer and rarer trees for which
space could not be spared at Kew.

The permanent planting of the whole park should be
considered, and we should see something better than
broken-backed Elms and the commoner sorts of trees.
The Elm, the most dangerous and worst of trees for
a town garden or to plant along roads and paths, is too
much seen, and often surrounded by spiked rails. If
we planted good trees we should have their beauty in
the winter — to artists and others a better thing than
even a summer effect — instead of wasting our efforts in
making a show for a few months in one place only.

Public parks do not afford a tithe of the beauty and
interest of which they are capable, if we take into con-
sideration their vast extent, their variety of soil and

National and public parks and tree planting 1 6 1

surface, and the large sums spent on their keeping.
Everywhere in them we see vast surfaces neglected, or
only planted with a few commonplace trees ; everywhere
evidence that no thought is given to enduring and
distinct and artistic planting; everywhere monotony
in the materials used. A number of trees become
popular, and are planted in about the same proportion,
and thus we find the same types of vegetation every-
where, and the capacities of our parks as national
gardens are undeveloped.

A suggestion. The plan likely to give us the noblest
public parks is to treat all the parks and gardens of a
great city as a whole, and to establish as far as possible
in each a distinct type of the finer vegetation. We
might devote one city park chiefly to deciduous trees ; a
suburban one like Richmond to evergreen forest trees ;
another to the almost countless flowering trees and
shrubs that are the glory of the grove in all northern
countries. Or we might have a square or a park
mainly of British trees and shrubs, another of Euro-
pean, another of American, and so on. In such ways
we might help the men in charge to more individuality,
and free them from paltry rivalry with one another in
the matter of ' bedding plants '. They could then take
up subjects best suited to the ground, and develop their
beauty and variety to the extent of their knowledge.
In the vast expanse of our public gardens there is
not one interesting branch of tree culture or flower
culture which we could not develop in a way hitherto
unexampled.

Few of our botanic gardens at present give much
idea of the variety and beauty of trees, and none gives
any worthy expression of even the vegetation of Europe

M

1 62 National and public parks and tree planting

alone ! What do we see of the beauty and character of
any one large family of trees by planting them all at
regular intervals over a plot, or in the various ways we
see them arranged in botanic gardens ? If our aim be
to show the beauty and dignity of the vegetable kingdom,
we must set ourselves free from such small notions, and
clearly the way to do this is to treat our vast series of
gardens as a whole, and stamp on each some marked
feature — from the smallest square with Hawthorns, to
the great park adorned with the trees of a hundred
hills.

In every direction distinct types of vegetation might
be met with, instead of the ' universal mixture* now
everywhere seen, which so soon trains the eye to take
no more notice of trees or plants than of the railings
around the squares. It is not, like many of the changes
we long for in towns, impossible to carry out from want
of means. The adoption of it would tend to make the
money freely spent on our public gardens go toward
valuable results, and might easily free us from the
present way of devoting vast sums to the growth of
tender plants.

CHAPTER XXIII

HOME LANDSCAPE

Symmetry certainly owed its origin to vanity and indolence : to
vanity, in attempting to force the situation to accord with the
building, instead of making the building suit the situation ; to
idleness, because it was more easy to work upon paper, which
will allow of any form, than to examine and combine the real
objects.— MARQUIS DE GERARDIN.

COUNTRY places being so often in the midst of natur-
ally beautiful scenery, it is all the more deplorable that
in so many cases they are so disfigured as to drive
away the artist and make sad all who feel the ugliness
of the garden and foreground of the house. There are
so many hard lines, lifeless gardens, and abominations
in iron fencing, destroying all the tender grace of the
landscape, and weak, dotty plantings ; such crowding
out by Cherry Laurels, often clipped to level, hard
lines, that the artist runs away from it all and seeks
refuge on the nearest common. These and other
sources of ugliness are absolutely unnecessary, and this
chapter is given to their consideration and avoidance.

Earth puddings. There is a practice in the London
parks and elsewhere of raising mounds with the idea of
getting better landscape effect, but as generally carried
out it is against all good work in landscape gardening.
It is assumed by the mound-makers that the ground is
not right for their purpose, and so heaps of earth are
thrown up here and there to change the form of the

•M 2

164 Home landscape

ground. Any one going through St. James's Park will
be able to judge for himself whether anything is
gained by this distortion of the surface. It will be clear
that at least two things are lost. In the first place,
those who made these mounds have rarely any eye for
natural gradation, and therefore false lines and stiff banks
occur here and there and are very unsightly. Secondly,
piling mounds of earth around trees is a sure way of
destroying one of the most beautiful aspects of tree life,
and that is the way in which the stem arises from the
earth, often with a wide-spreading bole, or with a broad
buttressed effect. There is scarcely any place where
trees grow naturally in which one cannot see the beauti-
ful way in which their stems are built — a form of beauty
which should never be concealed by needless earthwork.
Such treatment of ground surface is common in France,
and some of its worst effects may be seen in the Champs
Elysees, which is full of false lines, stiff banks, and beds
made at impossible angles, and this poor result is ill con-
cealed by the beauty of the trees and the good planting.
In valleys like those of the Thames and the Seine we
only lose by altering the natural lie of the ground. There
is no planting, either of flower or shrub, that is one whit
advanced by the creation of artificial mounds in a valley
where the soil is generally good. The art of too many
present-day landscape gardeners consists very largely in
this artificial chopping and changing of surface, often at
great expense and with anything but a gain in effect. It
is true that where the ground is naturally broken a slight
change in surface may sometimes open up hidden beauty
and give better effect, but to create artificial mounds for
the mere sake of avoiding a flat surface is a false idea of
art. And whenever it is necessary, in grading for walks

Home landscape 165

or any other purpose, to change existing surfaces, special
care should be taken to avoid this earthing up of tree
stems, which not only hides one of their finest features,
but is often fatal to certain kinds of trees.

Overplanting of rampant Evergreens. Many places
suffer from thoughtless planting of trees in the wrong
place as to kind and stature, and ugly overgrowths of
all-devouring evergreens, like the Pontic Rhododendron,
Common Cherry Laurel, Privets, and other nursery rub-
bish. Few seem to see how much their home landscape
is shut out and their pleasure gardens made dismal, and,
indeed, sometimes almost uninhabitable, in this way.
To those in any doubt about it, the following words by
one of the best planters, the late James McNab of the
Botanic Garden at Edinburgh, may give courage to
think and in due time to act. It is, however, difficult to
express in words the harm done to the home landscape
by stupid planting abandoned to its own redundance.
Apart from these sources of evil, there is the hopeless
human one of the man who will not allow a tree to be cut
down, no matter how ill placed or how much air or beau-
tiful view it shuts out. This too common type is often
quite proud of its doings, and is not to be dealt with by
the axe ; it suffers from blindness in not seeing only one
side of a very serious artistic question. It is a common
thing for even the finest groups and best trees about a
country house not to be rightly or well seen, owing to
unmeaning trees and coarse shrubs being massed about
the house itself, sometimes even to the exclusion of light
from the living rooms as well as the landscape beauty of
the surrounding country.

When grounds are first planted the trees are small, and
the views so extensive that the possibility of these being

1 66 Home landscape

ultimately shut out is never taken into consideration. As
time rolls on, many houses become buried amongst a dense
forest of trees, and few of the original views are visible, unless
one ascends to some eminence. Such shut-up places coming
into the market are frequently undisposed of for a length of
time, owing to their close and damp nature, the owner never
for a moment thinking that such closeness may be avoided.
Some often secure such places, and immediately commence
a reformation; the charm worked by the woodman's axe,
with the aid of the artist or landscape gardener, is often
marvellous, and, at a trifling expense, in certain cases the
nature of the thinnings paying for the change. The stem-
pruning of a few of the large trees often produces a pleasing
effect in giving us views between the stems and beneath the
branches. The removal of trees altogether, and the stem-
pruning and branching of others, give views without in the
least degree injuring the health of the trees. There is a
mansion known to me, on a somewhat rising ground about
half a mile from the sea, but shut out from it by large trees
and a thicket of evergreen shrubs, where by the removal of
some of the under branches of the large and wide-spreading
trees, the clearing or thinning out of a few of the evergreens,
beautiful views of Inchkeith and the Firth of Forth have been
obtained from the windows. At another large house, the
removal of an Oak-tree in front of the drawing-room windows
has opened up on one side a rich expanse of country, with
hills and wooded glens, before scarcely visible. Although
these remarks refer to views from houses, they apply also to
the wooded banks of rivers, extensive woods, and wooded
glens quite remote from dwellings. The eye, when once
practised to such landscape effects, will find on many
properties numerous spots for such openings.

The usurping Laurel. The late E. W. Cooke, the
artist, has a few words about this which cannot be too
often repeated: — 'There is no plant perhaps that deserves
the title of " usurper " more than what is generally called
the Common Laurel. No doubt this fine, free-growing

Home landscape 167

evergreen is one of the most desirable of shrubs when
kept in its appropriate place, viz. where it has ample
space — under trees on the margins of woods and
copses. In accordance with the ordinary ideas of garden-
ing, this shrub is the first obtained from the nursery,
as it is also the cheapest, to adorn the approach to the
dwelling or the garden at the rear. Placed usually in
the very front of the border, and quite close to the walk,
it grows most rapidly into a vigorous shrub, its shoots
often attaining in a single season 3, 4, or even 5 feet in
length. It is impossible to exaggerate the evil of which
this rampant shrub has been the cause ; the smaller
conifers, such as Thujas, Junipers, and Cypresses, as
well as Bays, Laurustinus, and Arbutus, are constantly
found to be destroyed by its wealth of shoots/

I have enjoyed the utmost satisfaction in ordering
hundreds to be cut down and carted away, thus not only
developing to the view many better things, but opening
the finest vistas and distant peeps- of scenery.

Ring planting. The commonest practice of the planter
of our day, in all parks and open spaces, the most precious
of all to keep, is dotting about rings fenced with iron.
This is the most inartistic thing he can do for effect
or the good growth of trees. It gives a dotty, hope-
less effect, and is wrong in every way, and most of all
for the life of the trees. The mass of trees is not suffi-
cient to give the shelter of the wood or any other of its
gains. The fencing is doubly costly because of the small
area of the clumps. We should plant in clouds instead
of dots, i. e. to mass the planting more in weak corners
of fields and where we want shelter, or group them in
the way in which they will not spot over the landscape,
and the trees will have a chance of attaining woodland

1 68 Home landscape

stateliness, and in which we can form walks agreeable in
hot weather and useful in other ways for the creatures
or frequenters of woodland.

The browsing line. In pastures this is often very ugly
and hard, and few people seem to have the courage to
get rid of it— by no means a difficult matter. We should
always remember that trees grow in the forest as columns,
not bushes, and the isolation of a tree in pasture, by
causing it to branch all round, gives it often a shape far
from beautiful, and by allowing the cows to do the prun-
ing we do not improve matters. It is bad in another
way by overweighting the tree with branches, because
many of these lower limbs the tree itself tries to throw
off as they become feeble and worn out. The right thing
to do in many such cases is to remove the browsing line
by trimming up as far as the true framework of the tree,
which often begins 10 or more feet above the ' line J. In
many cases I have cut away the branches to a height of
15 feet, and a more free and good form has been obtained.

Toy tray trees. — An acquaintance with the Pine woods
of the northern world should save us from the weak way
of planting each tree, set out by itself as a ' specimen '.
Even worse is it when, instead of keeping these Pines in
the pinetum, they are scattered about the foreground of
the house, and some of the finest houses in England
are marred by scattering Pine-trees in the foreground.
The conical shape of many Pines, always ugly as com-
pared with the trees of our own country, is only natural
to them when young. Of the many questions which the
landscape planter has to face that of the forms and
grouping of trees is the most important. A knowledge
of them is absolutely needed in pleasure grounds, parks,
and woods ; not only the ordinary plantation or shrub-

Home landscape 169

bery of the country, but also in long-established woods.
This knowledge is not only essential for good planting,
but also from an artistic point of view. Nor must it be
confined to one aspect only of even our few native trees.
Take the Oak : how mistaken any one might be as to its
planting who knew only one expression of its beauty !
The Oaks in the country south of London are quite dis-
tinct in aspect from those of Warwickshire. Yet the Oak,
set close in a Sussex wood, with many silvery columns
rising out of Primroses, is as beautiful as any of the fine
Oak growths of the Shakespeare country. And this is
but one example of the variation of habit of one tree,
showing the need for the study of trees in nature, and not
only in books. If we travel in mountainous lands where
Pines abound, we find that they grow close together,
that the ' extinguisher ' is not their true form, and that
they shoot up into handsome stems, often over 100 feet
high without a branch. It is a delusion to suppose that
there is anything old or right about the common set out
mode of planting conifers, as most of them are recent
gains to our country.

Iron fencing. Nothing tends to mar the beauty of
the foregrounds of landscape so much as the use of iron
fencing, a modern practice, and easily avoided in the
garden or near it. This is so important that a previous
chapter is given to it as regards woodland. All that
has been said of it there is equally true of the home
landscape or wherever we have to deal with fences.

Dismal Avenues. The making of narrow airless
avenues was so common in the past that the landscape
in many places is marred and barred by avenues too
narrow and too close-set, the effect of which is to cut
off good views, and in wet or gloomy weather to give

170 Home landscape

a feeling of depression, all the worse when we go to
parts of our islands blessed with a very heavy rainfall.
There are handsome and airy avenues which do not
hide the landscape from view, but avenues as most
commonly seen are not always wisely formed and would
be often better away. Where the drive is broad and
the margins are free on both sides, with the trees in
groups as at Powis, the effect is much better. If there
is not the space and conditions to plant avenues well it
is best to have none, and this applies to such places
especially. Good examples of avenues rightly made
are to be seen at Dalkeith, Powis, Heythrop, and other
places in England and France.

As to the trees to plant in avenues, the best is usually
the native tree. I have seen some picturesque avenues
of Scotch Fir, but the Californian Pines we cannot trust
for this purpose. When avenues of Araucaria or of
Wellingtonia have been tried they are failures, and the
avenue plan is against the successful culture of these
trees. Among Elms for avenues the best is the Moun-
tain Elm, which is less dangerous than the Common
Elm. The Plane also makes a noble avenue tree.
Beech does very well occasionally, but is apt to be
blown over when old.

Cedars of Lebanon are the grandest of all exotic
trees for an avenue, but there should be plenty of
room and a picturesque position for the best effect to
be made of this noble tree.

A beautiful and picturesque avenue may be made
where the drive going towards the house runs through
woodland of varied trees. Here the effect of an
avenue is gained without doing hurt to the landscape,
and shelter and shade and all the gains of an avenue

Home landscape 171

can be had without the drawbacks of what I have called
the 'dismal avenue'. If the trees are grouped and
massed with some variety all the better; but in this sort
of avenue two mistakes are commonly made : the first
is cutting the face of the wood into hard lines. Very
often the edges of woods where avenues of this kind
are made are planted with rampant evergreen shrubs —
Laurel, Yew, Box, and Pontic Rhododendron. The
growth of such things after a few years is much more
rapid than people expect when planting them, and they
push out into the drive and obscure the air, light, and
shade. Many have not the courage to cut them right
out, but cut them back into hard, ugly, stiff lines instead,
which often conceals the beauty of the wood and cuts
off its light and shade and even air. Such planting
should be avoided as a border to the wood. The
dignity and stature of the trees that fringe the woodland
avenue should be clearly seen ; if possible there should
be a good Grass margin, and in wet districts the trees
should never be allowed to overshadow the drive. We
gain nothing by letting rank evergreens encroach on
the avenue, but in case we have them so encroaching
our proper course is to cut them away altogether.
A group of Box or Yew on a sandy knoll looks well
from a distance, but no good effect is got from things
of this kind encroaching on a drive. An attempt is
sometimes made to form a stiff line of trees along a
woodland drive — it may be Wellingtonia, Lombardy
Poplar, or any other trees. Any attempt at making a
sort of avenue effect in front of a wood is rarely
successful, and is not nearly so pretty as allowing the
wood to show its best effects of silvery stems of Birches
or great groups of Oaks, Ash, or Scotch Firs.

INDEX

Abies amabilis, 47.

— concolor, 46.

— grandis, 44.

— lasiocarpa, 46.

— Lowiana, 46.
- nobilis, 33, 44.

— Nordmanniana, 44.

— Parsonsiana, 46.

— Sitchensis, 42.
Acer dasycarpum, 125.
Alder, 128.

Arbor- Vitae, the Giant, 43.

Western, no.

Art in relation to flower-garden-
ing and garden design, 16.

— talk of the day about, 14.
1 Artistic ', the term, 20.
Artists in planting, 18.
Ash, the, 57, 126.
Aspen, no.

Avenues, dismal, 169.
Azaleas, 129.

Bamboo, Japanese, 92.

— the palmate, 92.
Bambusa falcata, 92.

— Metake, 92.

— palmata, 92.
Barberry, Evergreen, 89.
Basswood, 130.
Beech, 56, 126.
Berberis aquifolium, 89.
Betula lutea, 128.
Birch, 72, 127.

— Canoe, 127.

Birch, European, 127.

— Paper, 127.

— Yellow, 128.
Box, 89.
Bracken, 124.
Brier, 124.
Broom, native, 86.

— Portuguese, 88.

— Spanish, 88.
Brooms, the, 85.
Browsing line, 168.
Buckeye, 128.

Carex paniculata, 139.
Carpet-beds, things of our own

time, patterns of flowers

and, 3.
Cedar, Canoe, 42.

— Deodar, 37.

— Red, 45.

Cedars of Lebanon and Atlas,

the, 41.

Cedrus atlantica, 41.
Chestnut, 66.

— Horse, 128.
Choice essential, 18.
Clipping back, no, 106.
Cornus sericea, 129.

— stolonifera, 129.
Covert, evergreen, 88.

— from seed, wood and, 82.

— plant, a beautiful ever-
green, 92.

— sowing direct, 83.
Crataegus, 127.

Index

173

Cupressus Lawsoniana, 41.

— nootkatensis, 42.

— obtusa, 42.
Cypress, Bald, 74.

— Great Japanese, 42.

— Lawsons, 41.
Cytisus albus, 86.

— scoparius, 86.

Degradation of flowers, 19.
Design, 38.

— garden, and recent writings
upon it, i.

— Art in relation to flower-
gardening and, 38.

— Waterworks, 13.
Distinctions, false, 34.
Dogwood, 124, 129.
Down planting, 120.

Mountain and Hill and,

116.
Draining, 131.

Earth puddings, 163.
Elm Field, 69.

— Wych or Mountain, 68.
Euonymus europeus, 130.

— latifolius, 130.

— Thunbergianus, 130.
Evergreens, overplanting ram-
pant, 165.

Failure, a source of, 31.
Fencing for Woodland, 140.

— Iron, 169.

what to do with, 144.

— no hard line in, 143.

— simplify the, 141.

— the best plants to use, 142.

— to reduce the extent of, 140.

— woods without, 142.
Fields, tail ends of, 29.

Fir, Cascade Mountains, 47.

— Columbian, 33, 44.

— Crimean, 44.

— Douglas, 42.

— Puget Sound, 44.

— Silver, 43.
- White, 46.

Firs, close planted, 35.
Flower-garden near the house, 5.

the true test of a, 8.

the Wild garden does not

take the place of, 4.

— gardeningand garden design,
Art in relation to, 16.

Flowers, degradation of, 19.
Forest, Northern, the greater

evergreen trees of the, 36.
summer-leafing trees of

the, 50.
Foxbrush, 85.
Fraxinus lentiscifolia, 126.

— Mariesi, 126.

— Oregona, 126.

— pennsylvanica, 126.

— rhyncophylla, 126.
Fuel, 26.

Furze, dwarf, 85.

Garden design, and recent
writings upon it, i.

Art in relation to flower-
gardening and, 16.

Waterworks, 13.

— flower, near the house, 5.
the true test of a, 8.

— ways, loss of, 3.

— Wild, does not take the place
of the flower-garden, 4.

— Woodland, the, 137.
Gardening, Landscape, 7.
Gardens, Landscape painting

and, 21.

J74

Index

Gardens, variety the true source

of beauty in, 10.
Gaultheria Shallon, 138.
Ginkgo biloba, 72.

— tree, 128.
Gorse, 124.

Grafting and its effect on trees,

149.

Growth, quickness of, 25.
Guelder Rose, 124, 129.

Hazel, 124.

Hedges, and shelters of Holly ,94.

Hemlock Spruce, 45.

the Western, 45.

Hickories, 130.

— and Walnuts, 76.

Hill and Down planting, Moun-
tain and, 116.

Holly-hedges, and shelters of, 94.
Home Landscape, 163.
Hornbeam, 67.
Horse Chestnut, 128.

Idealism, realism and, 17.
Iron fencing, 169.

what to do with, 144.

Ivy, Poison, 127.

Juniperus Sabina, 90.

Land, planting poor, 24.
Landscape gardening, 7.

— Home, 163.

— painting and gardens, 21.
Landslips, trees on ground

liable to, 120.
Larch, 59, 130.
- Japanese, 130.
Laurel, the usurping, 166.
Lime, American, 130.

— Silver, 130.
Limes, 130.
Liquidambar styraciflua, 130.

Liriodendron tulipiferum, 130.
Locust tree, 65.

Maidenhair tree, 72.
Maple, the Sycamore, 70.
Maples, 125.

Moorland planting, high, 117.
Mountain and Hill and Down
planting, 116.

Names for trees, English, 153.
Nyssa, 126.

Oak, common, 51.

— Durmast, 54.

— Evergreen, 114.

— varieties, and synonyms of
the, 54.

Oaks, 124.
Osier, 109.

Painting, Landscape, and gar-
dens, 21.
Parks, a suggestion, 161.

— and tree planting, national
and public, 157.

— London, 159.
Parrotia, 129.

Patterns of flowers and carpet-
beds things of our own time, 3.
Picea alba, 48.

— canadensis, 48.

— pungens, 43.
Pine, Austrian, 40.

— Bhotan, 47.

— Corsican, 38.

— Jeffreys, 46.

— Monterey, 40.

— Scotch, 39.

— stem, the beauty of the, 33.

— Swiss, 40.

— White, 39

— Yellow, 45.

Index,

175

Pinetum, a true, 27.
Pinus Cembra, 40.

— excelsa, 47.

— insignis, 40.

— Jeffrey!, 46.

— Morinda, 47.

— orientalis, 39.

— pinaster, 39.

— polita, 47.

— ponderosa, 45.

— Smithiana, 47.
Plane, Eastern, 64.
Plant, where to, 27.
Planting, artists in, 18.

— avoidable waste in, 131.

— be ready in, 135.
• — Down, 120.

Mountain and Hill and, 116.

— mixed, 150.

— Moorland, high, 117.

— permanent, 160.

— poor land, 24.

— ring, 167.

— Shore-lands, 112.

— time of, 31.

— tree, national and public
parks and, 157.

— Waterside, 107.
Plants, use little, 30.
Poison Ivy, 127.
Poplar, 126.

— black, no.

— grey, no.

— Lombardy, 64, no.

— White, 63, no.
Populus trichocarpa, 126.
Pterocarya, 130.

Quercus tinctoria, 124.

Realism and Idealism, 17.
Rhododendrons, 88.

Rhus cotinoides, 127.

— glabra, 127.

— Osbecki, 127.

— succedanea, 127.

— typhina, 127.
Rides, Woodland, 103.

forming, 102.

Rose, Guelder, 124, 129.

— Wild, 124.

Salix fragilis, 62, 109.

— viminalis, 109.

— vitellina, 109.

pendula, 109.

Savin, 90.

Sea Buckthorn, 115.

Seed, wood and covert from, 82.

Sequoia gigantea, 48.

Shade, woodland, 105.

Shelter, 24.

Shelters of Holly, hedges and,

94.

Shore-lands planting, 112.
Site, any way good that best

suits the, 12.
Snowy Mespilus, 129.
Soil-makers, trees as, 133.
Spartium junceum, 85.
Spindle tree, 130.
Spruce, Caucasian, 46.

— Hemlock, 45.
Western, 45.

— Norway, 43.

— Rocky Mountain, 43.

— Sitka, 42.

— Tiger tail, 47.

— White, 48.
Sumach, Stag's-horn, 127.

— Venetian, 127.

Sunny spots in woods, 103.
Sweet Gum, 130.
Sycamore Maple, 70.

1 76

Index

Taxus, 41.

Terms, misuse of, 5.

Thorn, 127.

— Cockspur, 127.
Thuiopsis borealis, 42.
Thuja gigantea, 43.

— Lobbi, 44.
Time of planting, 31.
Tree, Big, the, 48.

— Ginkgo, 128.

— Locust, 65.

— Maidenhair, 72.

— planting, national and public
parks and, 157.

— Spindle, 130.

— Tulip, 75, 130.

— Tupelo, 126.

— Willows, 79.

for effect, 108.

Trees as soil-makers, 133.

— best for our islands, native
and European, 77.

— English names for, 153.

— for beauty, 80.

— grafting and its effect on, 149.

— on ground liable to landslip,

120.

— the greater evergreen of the
Northern Forest, 36.

summer-leafing of the

Northern Fores , 50.

— toy tray, 168.

— useless evergreen, 37.
Trenching, 132.

Tsuga canadensis, 45.

— Mertensiana, 45.
Tupelo tree, 126.

Ulex nanus, 85.

— strictus, 85.
Underplanting, 96.

Variety essential, n.

Variety, the true source of

beauty in gardens, 10.
Viburnum, 124.
Vines, 128.

Virginian Creeper, 128.
Vitis Coignetiae, 128.

— Thunbergi, 128.

Walnuts, 130.

— Hickories and, 76.
- Winged, 130.

Water, a danger of, in.
Waterside planting, 107.
Waterworks, garden design, 13.
Wild garden does not take the
place of the flower-garden, 4.
Willow, Bedford, 109.

— Cardinal, 109.

— Crack, 62.

— Red, 109.

— White, 60, 109.

— Yellow, 109.
Willows, 125.

— Tree, 79.

for effect, 108.

Withy, 150.

Wood and covert from seed, 82.

— value, 78.
Woodland, fencing for, 140.

— fine in colour, 123.

— garden, the, 137.

— rides, 103.
forming, 102.

— shade, 105.

Woods, evergreen, for beauty,
24.

— Home, 23.

— on mixed, 99.

— sunn3>- spots in, 103.

— thinning, 146.

— without fencing, 142.

Yew, common, the, 41.

NIV

THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE
STAMPED BELOW

AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS

WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN
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WILL INCREASE TO 5O CENTS ON THE FOURTH
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23 1934

APfl

AUG

7 1936

LD 21-50m-8,'32

261055