Variety destroyed by its excess.-It is not only the line of the modern belt and drive that is objectionable, but also the manner in which the plantations are made, by the indiscriminate mixture of every kind of tree. In this system of planting all variety is destroyed by the excess of variety, whether it is adopted in belts or clumps, as they have been technically called; for example, if ten clumps be composed of ten different sorts of trees in each, they become so many things exactly similar; but if each clump consist of the same sort of trees, they become ten different things, of which one may hereafter furnish a group of oaks, another of elms, another of chestnuts, or of thorns, &c. In like manner, in the modern belt, the recurrence and monotony of the same mixture of trees, of all the different kinds, through a long drive, make it the more tedious, in proportion as it is long.
