if desired, be placed much nearer the tree, and made twice the height, or about six feet from the ground; in which case the

sides should be filled in with horizontal instead of vertical bars. The bark-covered side of the whole should be presented outwards. Strong iron wire guards, six or eight feet across, and dividing into two parts, may likewise be used, especially where the branches of the trees grow low upon the stem; and iron

hurdles may often be useful to inclose a group of three or four newly-planted trees. In some parts of Scotland, I have seen wooden tree-guards fastened together by using three or four rows

of thin oak or hazel rods, in a wattled form, (fig. 127,) round the top of the upright stakes.

Where a permanent fence round single trees in a field would be considered an eye-sore, this may be dispensed with by plant

ing around the base of the tree irregularly, and as if by accident, two or three common Thorns, (fig. 128,) with an occasional

Holly to vary their appearance, and give them more liveliness in winter. If left unpruned, and suffered to take entirely their own course, these plants will, after a few years' protection, become quite sufficient guards to the trees, and will have rather a picturesque effect. Unquestionably, however, they will detract from the symmetry and dignity of the tree.

That the colour of fences is by no means unimportant, will readily be deduced from what has been urged as to giving them a quiet appearance. All light paints, such as white or stonecolour, will be exceedingly out of place, unless the fence is very handsome, and intended to be made conspicuous. Green, as harmonising best with the colour of grass and vegetation generally, will be the most appropriate; but, as wire or hurdle fences would require a greater outlay to have them painted, it will be advisable to coat them with the tar mixture used and recommended by Mr. Fleming, of Trentham. It consists of one-third common or Stockholm tar and two-thirds gas-tar, mixed, and applied boiling hot with a paint-brush. It is said to last for many years without renewing, and costs extremely little. When fences of any kind of dressed wood are employed, they should simply be stained, or painted to resemble oak, or made green. The first of these will be the best.

6. In dealing with the outlines of beds and masses, besides the variation, and freshness, and easiness and grace of sweep, which it is desirable to procure in respect to such as are to contain shrubs, or shrubs and trees, much may likewise be done by the manner of planting them. Although it is necessary, to secure any degree of order and beauty for a few years, that the shape of irregular masses should be set out in a series of bold, and well-connected, and flowing curves, the actual outline of the plants, when they have reached some eight or ten years' growth, must never be supposed or arranged to take any such figure. On the contrary, each plant, (in the front, at least,) like the heads of old trees in a forest, should jut forward or retire with a curve of its own, forming an infinitely more numerous and more varied series of little curves; these again uniting, in their general outlines, to fill up and vary the series of larger sweeps at first marked out on the ground. Fig. 129 will best explain this; the dotted line along the front exhibiting the curved outline of the plantation, as it would be set out on the ground; and

the broken, inner, shaded line immediately behind it indicating the kind of shape which the trees and shrubs would take, in their front lines, when fully grown.

Instead, therefore, of the outside plants in a mass following implicitly the lines by which it is defined on the ground, they should stand forward or recede in the most irregular fashion, approaching nearest to the front of the bed at the prominent parts, and towards the middle or one of the sides of the recesses, but retiring a good deal in other places, and especially in those portions of the recesses on either side of the advanced specimens just named. In addition to this, and to heighten the variety of outline still more, the larger growing things, and such as will spread forward most on to the grass, may be put here and there along the very front rank of plants, the smallest growing kinds being kept among such as are planted farthest back. Thus, when the border comes to be turfed over, if ever it should be so covered, the edges of the mass will be as broken, yet as softly rounded and blended, as those of a natural thicket; and should the front of the border be retained for flowers, the shrubs will still produce the same effect as to outline, though it will not be exhibited so well.

Mere liny groups of plants that have length without breadth, and are easily seen through at all seasons, will ever appear povertystricken and meagre. Every group should have some kind of proportion preserved in its parts, especially between its two principal dimensions. All narrowness and thinness will be fatal to this. It is clusters or masses (not mere strips) of plants that are wanted in a garden, or a field, or a park. Long and slender

M

beds of them look too much like hedges, and are deficient in richness and connexion.

Each plantation or mass of plants upon a lawn will demand Its own to be treated separately, and yet in relation to others. individual outlines should be such as I have described; but these must make part of a series of lines of which the sides of a lawn are composed. It will not be enough to have one group well and tastefully defined; each group must play its part in the whole scene, and be shaped so as best to exhibit both itself and others. In laying down a number of groups, then, it will be proper first to arrange them in the plan, as if they were one continued mass, and then regard them as severed up, by walks or other divisions, in the way that may be afterwards found expedient. Two or more beds, where a walk divides them, may (and should generally) have their outlines arranged (figs 130

and 131) so as to look like one, when viewed from a distance. And the edges of these beds, towards the walk, may be either broken into bays, as in fig. 130, or be made continuously regular, with a verge of a uniform width, like fig. 131. Either of these modes may be adopted at pleasure, or the latter may be selected where the masses of shrubs are but narrow and small, and the former used when they are more ample.