secretary's budget. 353 



into rural life have some rights which the managers of our schools 

 should respect. What will a knowledge of permutations in arithmetic 

 or quadratics in algebra do for them in getting satisfaction out of farm 

 life? Not one teacher in five in the rural schools knows the names or 

 habits of the commonest plants or insects about the school house. 

 They notice a single specimen of the former only when possibly the 

 hand has passed over poison ivy, or samples of the latter in mosquito 

 and tly time. — Michigan Horticulturist. 



A BIT OF LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



Eds. Country Gentleman: There are two common extremes of 

 sentiment in regird to the value of forest and ornamental trees which 

 are always opposed to rural beauty. The one extreme has to do with 

 the immediate neighborhood of the residence, the other with more 

 distant views of landscape. 



It is certainly the common fault with country homes where any 

 attempt is made toward ornament, that too many trees and bushes are 

 allowed to grow. It is perfectly proper, indeed highly necessary, that in 

 the first days and years of onamenting a barren home, one should plant 

 thickly of a variety of trees and shrubs. There should be small groups of 

 spruces and deciduous trees of the rapid growing sorts, which will soon 

 afford shelter and privacy. But it is none the less important that 

 those clumps should be thinned just as fast as the individual trees be- 

 gin to crowd each other. To be sure one loves the trees which he has 

 planted and nourished, but it must be borne in mind that sentiment 

 should never stand in the way of beauty and utility. I do not like the 

 hackneyed advice which urges us to plant ornamental trees at such 

 distances as will be proper for them to occupy twenty years hence. 

 Such advice is discouraging; we must live in large part for the press- 

 ing present. Moreover, twenty years hence is but a point of time, and 

 it does not pay to forego the pleasure of nineteen years in order to en- 

 joy the perfection of the twentieth. What I always recommend to 

 owners of unadorned places, is to plant thickly; get an immediate 

 effect. And immediately thereupon I uige the injunction, strongly 

 underlined — do not neglect to thin out as soon as the trees begin to 

 crowd. One symmetrical and vigorous tree is worth three one-sided, 

 stunted ones. Clumps of trees soon grow into tangled thickets, the 

 delight of mosquitoes, moulds and vermin. They shut out sun and 

 health, and shut one in from enchanting glimpses of distant views. 

 The attractive clump has become an unsightly tangle, and soon all the 

 trees will have become so lop-sideJ that one cannot be removed with- 



H. R.— 23 



