I have often heard it asserted, as a general maxim in gardening, that hills should be planted, and valleys cleared of wood. This idea, perhaps, originated, and ought only to be implicitly followed in a flat or tame country, where the hills are so low as to require greater height by planting, and the valleys so shallow, that trees would hide the neighbouring hills: but, whenever the hills are sufficiently bold to admit of ground being seen, between large trees in the valley, and those on the brow of the hill, it marks so decided a degree of elevation, that it ought sedulously to be preserved. Instead, therefore, of removing the trees in the valley, at e, I should prefer shewing more of the lawn above them, by clearing away some of the wood on the knoll at f, which I have distinguished by the pavilion shewn in [fig. 68]: such a building would have many uses, besides acting as an ornament to the scenery, which seems to require some artificial objects to appropriate the woods to the magnificence of place; because wood and lawn may be considered as the natural features of Buckinghamshire.
