226 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



{August, 



in i)rL'venting the water from th^ing out soon 

 again. 



Towards the end of the month, and in Sep- 

 tember, evergreen hedges should receive their 

 last pruning till next Summer. Last Spring, 

 and in the Summer, when a strong growth re- 

 quired it, the hedge has been severely pruned 

 towards the apex of the cone-like form in which 

 it has been trained, and the base has been suf- 

 fered to grow any way it pleases. Xow that, in 

 turn, has come under the shears, so far as to get 

 it into regular shape and form. It will not be 

 forgotten that to be very successful with ever- 

 green hedges, they might to have a growth at 

 the base of at least four feet in diameter. 



It is a pleasure to note the growing style of 

 gardening favors a distinctively American one. 

 Europeans cannot have the things we have, and 

 we may as well avail ourselves of these, as 

 to be copying inferior ideas from them. We 

 are quite sure that much more satisfactory 

 gardening than this can be made out of nice 

 green grass and comfortable shade trees — clus- 

 ters of clematises and other flowering vines that 

 defy our heats, and masses and designs of shrubs 

 and dwarf colored-leaved plants, with hardy 

 herbaceous plants mixed. And then there is 

 the great American idea underlying all this — 

 most beautiful grounds maintained at little cost. 

 It is a very good time to think of these things. 

 Autumn will soon be here, when they can be 

 put into shape for the next season. Even 

 where one's gardens are small, and. there 

 may be room for but few things, these few will 

 be the more beautiful for a little care in select- 

 ion, and a little taste in arrangement. It is this 

 care which is the chief pleasure in the art of 

 gardening. 



COMMUNICA TIONS. 



PROTECTSON TO TREES. 



BY ISAAC HICKS, OLD WESTBURY, NEW YORK. 



It certainly is trying to our tempers after we 

 have planted our trees and bedding plants to 

 have them uptorn l)y cattle or scratched out by 

 an industrious biddy. To guard the trees and 

 hedges from the outrages of cattle we use barb 

 fence wire. Where there are evergreen hedges 

 liable to attack, one strand is sufflcient, extended 

 from posts set twelve feet apart, and one trial 

 will cure any cow. For single tices, a piece of 

 barb wire looped around the lowest branch and 



twisted loosely around the tree two feet from 

 the bottom and tucked into the coil will last for 

 years, and as the tree grows can be easily en- 

 larged. Single specimens of evergreens liable 

 to attacks from cattle require four or more posts 

 around the tree and the wire will be much less 

 conspicuous than boards; as iron posts are sold 

 cheaply they could be used, and painted green and 

 would scarcely be noticed. Many are deterred 

 from planting out bedding plants — such beautiful 

 objects on the lawn or the smallest dooryard — 

 from the proclivity of our domestic fowls for in- 

 vestigation. We use galvanized wire netting ; 

 meshes may be two inches, and supported by 

 small posts. This year shall use iron rods three 

 to four feet long, of a size that will not easily 

 bend, half inch, and although a fence around a 

 flower bed glowing with beauty detracts from 

 the efiects, still it is better than to have either no 

 flowers or no chickens. Elevated boxes covered 

 with bark look very rustic and ornamental, but 

 the boxes soon decay and the bark soon requires 

 renewing. For two years we have substituted 

 kerosene or petroleum barrels sawed in two and 

 painted a pretty red, and if put under cover will 

 last a long time. 



MANAGEMENT OF LAWNS. 



BY W. H. COLEMAN, GENEVA, N. Y. 



Your remarks on lawn culture in the June num- 

 ber no doubt deserve the premium you so modest- 

 ly claim, but I wish you had added afeM' woids on 

 how to secure a good "first catch" of grass in 

 making a lawn. What with our swashing Spring 

 rains and weeks of May drought the seed is 

 either washed away before it sprouts or the ten- 

 der blades are burnt up, and on the dead levels 

 in shady corners show an even green while the 

 body of the lawn grows patchy and uneven. I 

 have thought that a thin covering of straw would 

 be a good thing, retaining moisture and exclud- 

 ing heat, but very untidy would be the looks of 

 it. Then, if you have a good growth, another 

 trouble arises, you mow it once a week and just 

 as it is looking its prettiest another di'ought 

 comes along, the tender roots of your young 

 grass can't stand it and they begin to die out. I 

 find by exiDerience that you are right about late 

 cutting and the use of coarse manure. A new- 

 seeded plot of last year was unintentionally left 

 without Winter covering, and I was surprised to 

 find so nmch of it coming up this Spring, which 

 at first seemed utterly dead. We have had a 



