120 TEAXSACTIOXS OF THE ILLINOIS 



ment, — all ttese things must be taken into account at the start, lest 

 even the trees become a nuisance instead of a joy forever. A weed 

 may properly be detined as a plant oiat of its fitting place. The 

 lady's hair may be a crown of beauty or a mop, according as 

 it is well or ill managed. Nothing is more beautiful than the 

 school- girl's free-flowing tresses, gently lifted by the breeze, or 

 gleaming in the morning sun; but, alas, a single hair, coiled in the 

 pudding, destroys the appetite, and mars your peace of mind. So, 

 trees, shrubs and vines, fitly placed, are a continual delight: improp- 

 erly placed, they are a waste of efEort and a grief to the judicious. 



Manifestly, a square, plain, solid house should have on its 

 grounds different trees from those which harmonize with the pointed 

 gothic cottage, and the dwelling itself should accord with the char- 

 acter of the ground on which it stands. Neither will it be generous 

 or safe to ignore the taste or plans of one's neighbors. At a certain 

 meeting of tbe'Farmers' Club, as reported in the New York Tribune 

 at the time of the gray-willow craze, one member sagely urged that 

 every prairie farm should have a ^vind-break of gray willows, or 

 other quick-growing trees, on the north and west lines, leaving the 

 east and south sides open to sun and air. There was nothing said in 

 the report to indicate that any one noticed the absurdity of the idea, 

 but in the course of a week or two it was discovered that one man's 

 north line was his neighbor's south line, and that such a wind- 

 break would completely inclose every farm. The moral of this is, 

 that we cannot, if we would, arrange our own grounds regardless of 

 the interests and idiosyncracies of our neighbors. 



•' God never made an independent man, 

 'T would jar the concord of His general plan." 



Rows, geometrical figures and stiff military lines of long-legged 

 trees should be avoided. In the city such lines are a necessity; but 

 why should country villages destroy their chief charm of picturesque- 

 ness by trying to be a city in miniature? Out in Pueblo, Colo . four 

 years ago, a mighty cottonwood. twenty-seven feet in circumference, 

 the one lone tree of the town, had just been cut down in the main 

 street. I asked a citizen what possible excuse there could be for such 

 vandalism. " It stood right in front of a grocery, and was in the 

 way," was the reply, "and so the town council ordered it removed." 

 This same sapient council had set out on the street rows of little cot- 

 tonwood staddles, some two inches in diameter, mere toothpicks com- 

 pared to the giant they had cut down. The wisdom and the gold of 

 Solomon could not replace that landmark in less than a century of 

 time. 



Trees, as a rule, should stand, not in files, equi-distant from each 

 other, but singly or in groups of two or more. There are two valleys 

 in this country, lying three thousand miles apart, both famous for 

 beauty of landscape — that of Santa Clara, California, and the valley 



