TRANSACTIONS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF NORTHERN ILL. 2()5 



LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



Mr. Edmund Hatheway, from the Committee on Landscape Gar- 

 dening, read the following report : 



I desire to offer a few general suggestions, to the rural worker and 

 thinker, on rural adornment. If our country is ever to grow lovely 

 through man's tastes and labors, it is this class of persons who must 

 accomplish it. 



The farmer should take plenty of ground for special ornamentation, 

 and if he has a somewhat irregular surface available for such a purpose, it 

 should be used in preference to the smoother land, as it affords better 

 opportunities for variety. If he does not take sufficient space, and is a 

 person of taste, it will prove a matter of life-long regret. Many people 

 have this to lament over. Their evergreens, hard maples, willows, box- 

 elders and honey-locusts were planted close together, and now, when 

 they have arrived at an age to display their beauty, they begin to deform 

 each other. Every time the owner steps through his door-yard he sees a 

 fine evergreen, or some other favorite tree, growing into hopeless one- 

 sidedness or stunted worthlessness, and while he deplores it he usually 

 lacks courage to do anything about it ; thus his door-yard becomes a tor- 

 mept instead of a joy. It is likely that all the mementoes left of such 

 door-yards, after awhile, will be a few tombstones of Lombardy and Cot- 

 tonwood. Whoever invented the country door-yard did the world a 

 great injury. SiKice that time most country people find no place to put 

 a fine tree but in the door-yard. 



Plant trees liberally, but not indiscriminately. Every tree has its 

 own beauties and its own place, but nothing can be more indefinite than 

 the ideas usually entertained on these points. The most common thought 

 seems to be, that if a tree or shrub is handsome in itself it will look well 

 anywhere. The truth appears to be, that if we wish to produce fine 

 effects by tree-planting, the adaptation of the tree to its place, not only 

 by its general form and habits, but by the sentiments which it awakens in 

 the beholder, is of prime importance. Trees which express strength, 

 independence, retirement, shelter, seem better adapted than any others 

 to our prairie homes. Our winters are cold and our winds are fierce ; the 

 trees must have strength and endurance to withstand them. Upon our 

 broad open lands we seem to live in all out-door; we want trees that will 

 sliut us into the retirement and privacy of a home. We want trees that 

 will warm and comfort the landscaj^e. A home with oaks, maples, 

 elms and evergreens has independence, intelligence and refinement asso- 

 ciated with it. A home with poplars and other soft woods, chiefly, is a 

 cheaply gotten-up and short-lived affair, and has a poverty-stricken look. 

 When we see a house situated in the midst of soft wood trees, that have 

 grown into a tangle, we are led to think that the owner was in a great 

 hurry to reach respectability, but it is very doubtful if he has succeeded 

 so far as his surroundings are concerned. We would not disparage the 

 planting of the deciduous soft woods, but great care should be taken in 

 regard to kind, place, and also amount. 



