There is another circumstance, with respect to lines, deserving attention. The course of a river may frequently shew two or more different bends, which do not so intersect each other as to impede the view along it; and these may be increased in proportion to the breadth of the river: but in a road, or a walk, especially if it passes through a wood or plantation, a second bend should never be visible.

The degree of curve in a walk, or road, will therefore depend on its width; thus looking along the narrow line of walk, you will not see the second bend: but in the same curve, if the road be broader, we should naturally wish to make the curve bolder by breaking from it, according to the dotted line from A to B in the diagram [fig. 73].

[Fig. 73.]

B

A

When two walks separate from each other, it is always desirable to have them diverge in different directions, as at a [in fig. 74], rather than give the idea of reuniting, as at b.

b

(Fig.74.]

Where two walks join each other, it is generally better that

they should meet at right angles, as at c, than to leave the sharp point, as in the acute angle at d.

The most natural course for a road, or walk, is along the banks of a lake, or river; yet I have occasionally observed great beauty in the separation of these two lines; as where the water sweeps to the left, and the road to the right, or vice versa: the true effect of this circumstance I have often attempted to represent on paper, but it is one of the many instances in which the reality and the picture excite different sensations.

This Chapter might have included every necessary remark relative to fences, whether attached to parks or farms; but as I wish to enlarge upon the distinction between the improvements designed for ornament, and those for profit, or gain, I shall endeavour to explain these different objects, as they appear to me opposite in their views, and distinct in their characteristics. Both are, indeed, subjects of cultivation; but the cultivation in the one is husbandry, and in the other decoration.

CHAPTER VII.

Ferme ornée, a Contradiction-Farm and Park distinct Objects-Experimental, or useful Farm-Beauty and Profit seldom compatible.

THE French term Ferme ornée, was, I believe, invented by Mr. Shenstone, who was conscious that the English word Farm would not convey the idea which he attempted to realize in the scenery of the Leasowes. That much celebrated spot, in his time, consisted of many beautiful small fields, connected with each other by walks and gates, but bearing no resemblance to a farm as a subject of profit. I have never walked through these grounds without lamenting, not only the misapplication of good taste, but that constant disappointment which the benevolent Shenstone must have experienced in attempting to unite two objects so incompatible as ornament and profit. Instead of surrounding his house with such a quantity of ornamental lawn or park only, as might be consistent with the size of the mansion, or the extent of the property, his taste, rather than his ambition, led him to ornament the whole of his estate; vainly hoping that he might retain all the advantages of a farm, blended with the scenery of a park. Thus he lived under the continual mortification of disappointed hope, and, with a mind exquisitely sensible, he felt equally the sneer of the great man, at the magnificence of his attempt, and the ridicule of the farmer, at the misapplication of his paternal acres.

Since the removal of court yards and lofty garden walls from the front of a house, the true substitute for the ancient magnificence destroyed is the more cheerful landscape of modern park scenery; and, although its boundary ought in no case to be conspicuous, yet its actual dimensions should bear some proportion to the command of property by which the mansion is supported. If the yeoman destroys his farm by making what is called a Ferme ornée, he will absurdly sacrifice his income to his pleasure: but the country gentleman

can only ornament his place by separating the features of farm and park; they are so totally incongruous as not to admit of any union but at the expense either of beauty or profit. The following comparative view will tend to confirm this assertion.

*

The chief beauty of a park consists in uniform verdure; undulating lines contrasting with each other in variety of forms; trees so grouped as to produce light and shade to display the varied surface of the ground; and an undivided range of pasture. The animals fed in such a park appear free from confinement, at liberty to collect their food from the rich herbage of the valley, and to range uncontrolled to the drier soil of the hills.

The farm, on the contrary, is for ever changing the colour of its surface in motley and discordant hues; it is subdivided by straight lines of fences. The trees can only be ranged in formal rows along the hedges; and these the farmer claims a right to cut, prune, and disfigure. Instead of cattle enlivening the scene by their peaceful attitudes, or sportive gambols, animals are bending beneath the yoke, or closely confined to fatten within narrow enclosures, objects of profit, not of beauty [see fig. 75].

This reasoning may be further exemplified by an extract from the Red Book of ANTONY.

The shape of the ground at ANTONY is naturally beautiful, but attention to the farmer's interest hast almost obliterated

I am aware that the word undulating is seldom applied to solid bodies, but I know no other word so expressive of that peculiar shape of ground consisting of alternate concave and convex lines flowing into each other.

+ In this, as in many other cases, I transcribe from the Red Book, as if my plans were not yet executed.

all traces of its original form; since the line of fence, which the farmer deems necessary to divide arable from pasture land, is unfortunately that which, of all others, tends to destroy the union of hill and valley. It is generally placed exactly at the point where the undulating surface changes from convex to concave, and, of course, is the most offensive of all intersecting lines; for it will be found that a line of fence, following the

shape of the ground, or falling in any direction from the hill to the valley, although it may offend the eye as a boundary, yet it does not injure, and, in some instances, may even improve the beautiful form of the surface. No great improvement, therefore, can be expected at ANTONY, until almost all the present fences be removed, although others may be placed in more suitable directions [see figs. 76 and 77].

I am aware that, in the prevailing rage for agriculture, it is unpopular to assert, that a farm and a park may not be united; but, after various efforts to blend the two, without

[F.g.77. Section of fig. 75, in which the hills are shewn in aration, and the valley between them in pasture.

violation of good taste, I am convinced that they are, and must be distinct objects, and ought never to be brought together in the same point of view.

To guard against misrepresentation, let me be allowed to say, each may fill its appropriate station in a gentleman's