As compared with the country seats of England, those of Scotland which we saw during our late tour are inferior in point of park and pleasure ground scenery. Nature has done much more for the landscape scenery of Scotland than she has for that of England, by supplying the most striking or interesting features; but man has not yet been endowed with sufficient taste, or rather, perhaps, wealth, to make the most of them. We have heard it alleged, that the difference between Scotch and English parks, with regard to wood and lawn, is owing to the inferiority of the northern climate; but this is one of the greatest mistakes that can be made on the subject. A sufficient variety of trees and shrubs, for all the purposes of the most varied shrubberies and plantations, grow as well in Scotland as in England; grass grows as well, and can be mown as smoothly; and gravel, or a substitute for it, looks as well, when properly managed. There may be fifty or a hundred ornamental trees and shrubs, which endure the open air in the central counties of England, which will not live through the winter in Scotland; but this is of no consequence with reference either to landscape-gardening or ornamental planting. The park scenery of Scotland is inferior, as far as art is concerned, to that of England, chiefly from its confined extent, and the formality of all the lines and forms connected with it. This formality may be traced to the love, in Scotch landowners, of agricultural profits; straight lines, and surfaces uninterrupted by trees, being most favourable for aration.
