HOWEVER, there are other species we find, which are well adapted to painting. The Larch, for instance, is singularly light in winter; and in summer, it wears a lively green. Again, the Ash is uniformly light and elegant: the Planes and the Aria are still more splendid, in both seasons. But the Evergreens are the most permanent; though not altogether so; as, at the time of making their shoots, they wear a lighter garb, than at other seasons. In winter, the Scotch Fir, and the Larch, are admirably adapted to colouring; and, in beguiling the dreary reign of winter, the skill of the artist is best employed. Hence, the back of the recess is already a mass of Firs, and dark deciduous trees; the projecting point to be made as splendid as Larches, Planes, and Arias can render it: meaning to assimilate and soften them off, by degrees, with the Beech, as a semi-tint or intermediate colour, to the Oak and the Esculus.

- Bur after all, painting with living colours, and in open daylight, is not only difficult, but in a degree unprofitable; for a beam of the Sun may turn the whole into ridicule; by throwing the light into shadow, and rendering the shadow a mass of light.

In plantations distant from the eye, all colouring is improper; and in those at hand, a fortuitous

assemblage is, perhaps, on the whole, preferable to any studied arrangement.

NEVERTHELESS, in ornamental plantations, in which plants of different heights are used, regard must be had to that circumstance; and, in the more gaudy exotic shrubery, colour ought not to be wholly neglected. In winter, Evergreens mixed with the crimson branches of the American Corand relieved with the splendid foliage of the silvered tribe of shrubs, have a pleasing effect.

nus,

THE ARRANGEMENT OF PLANTS, however, whether as to colour or height, is a most tormenting employment. A Painter has his pallet and brush in hand, and his colours in passive obedience to his will. He sees his picture at one view, or can run his eye over it, with a single glance, and can, in a moment, make or unmake whatever his imagination dictates, or his judgment condemns.

BUT not so the Rural Artist; his colours are too unwieldy, to be worked up with his own hands; he is, of course, liable to the misconceptions and aukwardnesses of workmen ; and he cannot correct ; an error without injury to his work. Beside, his canvas is not set up before him, so that he can see the whole at once; nor can he sketch out his whole design, in a few hours, or perhaps a few days:

planting is a progressive business, and is liable to seasons and the weather; especially if the site be of much extent.

For small plots, ascertaining and listing the plants, and distributing boughs, in the manner already mentioned, is perhaps the most eligible. And, for larger plantations, dividing them into compartments, and proceeding in a similar way, is the most practicable method we have yet been able to hit upon. Thus, the number and species of plants for the whole plantation being ascertained; the number of each species, requisite for each separate compartment, must be found, and their boughs be distributed.

THE distribution of the marks is best done, before the holes are dug, where circumstances will admit of it; as each species of plants may then have spaces assigned them, suitable to their respective natures and manners of growth; and the size of the pits, too, may be adapted to the probable length of root which each sort is known to rise with; the workman describing a circle round the marking twig, and returning it to the center of the hole, when it is formed.

By calculations of this kind, and by methods of this sort, strictly adhered to, most of the embarrass

ments incident to forming mixed ornamental plantations, may be avoided, much labour be saved, many plants be preserved from injury, and the execution be rendered comformably to the design.

MINUTE THE FIFTEENTH.

MARCH 24. In TRANSPLANTING large plants, the success depends, chiefly, on taking them up with a good LENGTH OF ROOT; which ought not, in ordinary cases, to be less than one fourth of the height of the plant. It may be difficult, in most cases, to take up twenty feet plants, with roots five feet long; but, where plants stand tolerably free, there is none in taking up plants of twelve feet high, with roots three feet long.

ROOTs are the natural and best stay of a plant; and a planter had better bestow ten minutes in taking up, than five in staking. It is not necessary that balls of earth, of a semidiameter equal to the length of the roots, should be moved. These may be reduced to any size. Indeed, the more experience we acquire in transplanting, the more anxious we become for roots, and the less so for balls of

earth. These, however, are desirable when they can be moved without excessive expence of carriage, and without injury to the roots.

MINUTE THE SIXTEENTH.

MARCH 30. A view may sometimes be improved, at an easy expence. A few remaining trees, of one line of an avenue, had a bad effect, from the windows of a principal room, to which they nearly pointed, but not directly, their stems being seen distinct; and, of course, produced the bad effect of a straight line of trees.

THIS defect was remedied by a single shrub -a well furnished plant-about ten feet high, which covers the stems, while the tops take the form of a group; the idea of a line being lost, in the general effect. How often may similar defects be hid in this way. Had the width of the deformity been greater, a group, or a tuft of shrubs, would have been required.

MINUTE THE Seventeenth.

APRIL 1. When shrubs have been drawn up tall, and rendered naked at the bottom, by being