246 STATE nOKTICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 



the rich, wild growth of mingled bushes and vines and cedars which made 

 billows -of waving green on either side, are now utterly despoiled. 



Have they a neater look? No, for the work, being counted unpaying work, 

 has been done in a slipshod way, leaving stubs from six inches to two feet high, 

 and exposing a jumble of stones and all manner of roughnesses, which the 

 mounds of foliage had kindly concealed for years. 



We must begin at the beginning in this matter, and, by proper arrangement 

 of school-houses and school grounds in country towns, teach children once for 

 all, what order and neatness mean ; teach it so thoroughly that the barbarisms 

 along our highways will be to them a stinging offense. 



Mr. Beecher,in one of his later lay-preachments, has advocated the decoration 

 of the interiors of our school-houses, so that they may be up to the level of best 

 homes. This does not seem to me nearly so important as that the grounds and 

 approaches should show such zealous care, and such charm of neatness and 

 fitness as shall regale the eye of every passer-by and inoculate the whole 

 township with the love of that thrift which belongs to order and comeliness. 



What legislature will offer a premium, — and it should be a good one, — to the 

 district maintaining the best appointed school-house, with the most neatly 

 ordered and most judiciously planted grounds? A struggle for such a premium 

 would compel new thinking and new growth in a direction surer and safer than 

 any outlined by sticking poles of trees on either side of a highway. 



FRUIT TREES FOR ORNAMENT. 



''Horticola'"' in the Kural New Yorker hits on a point nicely that we have 

 been striking at for years when he says : 



Can anybody tell me why some of our best fruit trees should not be used as 

 ornamental trees on the lawn? I mean any good and sufficient reason outside 

 of the domain of prejudice and sentiment? For example, my friend, who is a 

 gentleman of culture and refined taste, has bought a small place in the country, 

 and wants fruits, flowers, vegetables, ornamental trees and shrubs, and a small 

 lawn; that is, a real lawn, and not a sham. Apples, pears, peaches, etc., he 

 cannot have in useful quantity unless they are used as accessories to the lawn. 

 Then why may he not use tliem in this way for the purpose of ornamentation, 

 not exclusively, but in combination with what are called ornamental trees? I 

 have told him he may. Is it anything deeper than prejudice which prevents 

 the judicious use of fruit trees on the lawn? I have so employed them several 

 times where fruit could not otherwise be grown, and am by no means dissatisfied 

 with the result. Pleasing effects can in this way be generally produced even on 

 a limited scale. A peach, a cherry, a plum, etc., with double flowers, are 

 ornamental trees; with single flowers they are not. But why? What can be 

 more beautiful than an apple, a pear, or a peach tree in full bloom? Where a 

 man has the choice of an orchard, that is the better place for his fruit trees, as 

 he can cultivate them there as he cannot on the lawn, and secure better fruit; 

 but by top dressing the lawn he can be pretty sure of fair crops of very good 

 fruit. Therefore I say that, rather than be without fruit, I would plant fruit 

 trees on my lawn. 



