. The art of beautifying suburban home grounds of small extent. Landscape gardening; Trees. The mere weight, breadth, ajid height of the trunk and branches of a tree, without reference to its outUnes or foliage, are the principal sources of majesty in trees; and it is when majesty and picturesqueness are combined that we reaUze our higher ideals of grandeur. A tree with massive horizontal branches in- voluntarily impresses us with a sense of the immense inherent strength that can sustain so great a weight in a position that most squarely defies the mechanical force of gravity; and therefore co
. The art of beautifying suburban home grounds of small extent. Landscape gardening; Trees. The mere weight, breadth, ajid height of the trunk and branches of a tree, without reference to its outUnes or foliage, are the principal sources of majesty in trees; and it is when majesty and picturesqueness are combined that we reaUze our higher ideals of grandeur. A tree with massive horizontal branches in- voluntarily impresses us with a sense of the immense inherent strength that can sustain so great a weight in a position that most squarely defies the mechanical force of gravity; and therefore conveys the impression of majesty, though it has no extraordinary height or dimensions. On the other hand, the tulip-tree, or the cottonwood, with a straight and lofty stem from three to six feet in diameter, is a grand object by virtue of its weight, and loftiness, and the power that its dimensions express, though its head may not be proportionally large, nor its bark or branches massive, rough, and angular, or its outline irregular enough to be picturesque. The sycamore, or buttonball, is a familiar example of a swelling trunk of majestic size. Its bark is as smooth in age as in youth; but it has a certain picturesqueness from the contrasts of color caused by shedding its thin bark laminae in scales ; and majesty by its size, and the bold- ness of its divergent branches. Mere size of trunk, and weight of branches, affect us so powerfully, that when we have lived near a fine old tree, it is not so much the beauty of its foliage, or the pleasures of its shade, that produce the reverent love we have for it, but the unconscious presence of the majesty of Nature impressing us like "* * * an emanation from the indwelling spirit of the ; By referring to the vignette of the oak at the head of page 302, the effect produced by mere breadth and weight in producing Fig. 79-. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally en
Size: 1759px × 1420px
Photo credit: © Library Book Collection / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectlandscapegardening
