Observations on Modern Gardening Author:Thomas Whately Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: remains a flat, it depends on the objects around for all its variety, and all its beauty ; but convex and concave forms are generally pleafing ; and the number o... more »f degrees and combinations into which they may be cart is infinite : thofe forms only in each which are perfectly regular muft be avoided ; a femicircle can never be tolerable: fmall portions of large circles blended together; or lines gently curved, which are not parts of any circle; a hollow finking but little below a level; a fwell very much flattened at the top ; are commonly the moft agreeable figures. In ground which lies beautifully, the concave will generally prevail; within the fame compafs it fhews more furface than a fwell ; all the fides of the latter are not vifible at the fame time, except in a few particular fituations ; but it is only in a few particular fituations that any part of a hollow is concealed ; earth feems to have been accumulated to raife the one, and taken away to fink the other. The concave, therefore, appears the lighter, and for the moft part it is the more elegant fhape; even the Hopes of a fwell can hardly be brought down, unlefs broken now and then into hollows, to take off from the heavinefs of the mafs. There are, however, fituations where the convex form fhould be preferred. A hollow juft below the brow of a hill reduces it to a narrow ridge, which has a poor meagre appearance; and an abrupt fall will never feem to join with a concave form immediately above it; a fharp edge divides them ; and to connect them, that edge muft be rounded, or at leaft flattened; which is, in fact, to interpofe a convex or a level. IV. In made ground, the connection is, perhaps, the principal confi- deration. A fwell which wants it is but aheap; a hollow but a hole ; and both appear artificial; the on...« less