Note 59 — Volume III (continued 3)

He might have enlarged on the bad taste of lopping trees in such a ridiculous manner, to make them shoot to the clouds, by taking off their fine tops, their umbrage, by draining the sap, and preventing their thriving. This method, it is true, supplies the gardeners with wood, but it robs the kingdom of it, which is not over stocked with it already. One would imagine that nature was different in France, from what it is in any other part of the world, they take so much pains to disfigure her. The parks are planted with nothing but long poles; they are like so many forests of masts, and you walk in the midst of woods without finding any shelter.