periments will support the principle, if they are made on plantations not very small, nor too close to the eye: the several parts may then be shortened or lengthened, and the variety of the outline improved by a judicious arrangement of greens.

XVI. Other effects arising from mixtures of (recns will occasion ally present themselves in the disposition of wood, which is the next consideration. Wood, as a general term, comprehends all trees and shrubs in whatever disposition; but it is specifically applied in a more limited sense, and in that sense I shall now use it.

Every plantation must be either a wood, a crove, a clump, or a single

tree.

A wood is composed both of trees and underwood, covering a considerable space. A grove consists of trees without underwood; a clump differs from either only in extent; it may be either close or open; when close, it is sometimes called a thicket; when open, a groupe of trees; but both are equally clumps, whatever be the shape or situation.

XVII. One of the noblest objects in nature is the surface of a large thick wood, commanded from an eminence, or seen from below hanging on the side of a hill. The latter is generally the more interesting object: its aspiring situation gives it an air of greatness; its termination is commonly the horizon: and indeed if it is deprived of that splendid boundayr, if the brow appears above it, (unless some very peculia effect characterises that brow), it loses much of its magnificence; it is inferior to a wood which covers a less hill from the top to the bottom; for a whole space filled is seldom little: but a wood comanded from an eminence is generally no more than a part of the scene below; and its boundary is often inadequate to its greatness. To continue it, therefore, till it winds out of sight, or loses itself in the horizon, is generally desireable; but then the varieties of its surface grow confused as it retires; while those of a hanging wood are all distinct; the furthest parts are held up to the eye; and none are at a distance, though the whole be extensive.

The varieties of a surface are essential to the bounty of it; a continued smooth-shaven level of foliage is neither agreeable nor natural; the different growths of trees commonly break it in reality, and their shadows still more in appearance. These shades are so many tints, which undulating about the surface, are its greatest embellishment; and such tints may be produced with more effect, and ore certainty, by a judicious mixture of greens; at the same time an additional variety may be introduced, by grouping and contrasting trees very different in shape from each other: and whether variety in the greens or in the forms be the design, the execution is often casy, and seldom to a certain degree impossible. In raising a young wood it may be perfect; in old woods there are many spots which may be either thinned or thickened; and there the characteristic distinctions should deter ine what to plant, or which to leave; at the least will often point out those which, as blemishes, ought to be taken away; and the removal of two or three trees will sometimes accomplish the design. The number of beautiful forms,