me 7 
‘ 
154 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
comes more so when it is screened and partially concealed by well-disposed 
groups of shrubs. 
To the owner of grounds of limited extent, the shrubs come with 
particular value. Very few trees perhaps can be accommodated on the nar- 
row lawn, and often they will have to be relegated to the sidewalk row; 
one or two smaller and select varieties of tree, as the Wier’s maple, cut- 
leaf birch, or weeping mountain ash, or some dwarf evergreen may be 
placed upon the lawn, but the principal dependence must be placed upon the 
shrubs, and gallantly will they come to the aid of those who put their trust 
in them. 
How, then, shall they be arranged to give the best effect? The father 
of American landscape gardening, in his desire to combat the ideas of 
geometrical planting prevailing in his time, suggested that better results 
might be obtained if the planter would take the necessary number of pota- 
toes, and, throwing them at random in the air, set his trees wherever the 
tubers might be found resting ‘on the lawn. Sometimes we find shrubs 
dotted all over the grounds in such a way as to indicate that the owner had 
literally followed some such advice; but as we contemplate the spottedness 
that results and the lack of open lawn space, we feel that the spirit of the 
great artist, if present, would add to his former suggestion a clause to the 
effect that, when applied to shrubberies, the garden rake should first be 
called into use to draw the potatoes into fore intimate relationship with 
each other and to afford those broad spaces of sunlight so essential to a per- 
fect picture. 
It is evident then that under ordinary circumstances our shrubberies 
should be arranged around the boundaries of our lawns, but other consider- 
ations may also influence the special location of them. Many necessary de- 
tails of domestic economy, especially in the country, are not always desir- 
able features in the landscape and, whether far or near, properly arranged 
plantations may entirely screen them, or, with the addition of vines, so drape 
the obnoxious object as to change it into a thing of beauty. 
The individual taste of the owner will also point to specific effects de- 
sirable in these plantings. If he desires the brightest reminders of open- 
ing spring, many early-blooming species will serve him, and on through the 
calendar of flowers he will find those varieties which will continue the feast 
of colors until autumn frosts replace the blasted blossoms with the richer 
scarlets and yellows of the dying leaves. 
Even in winter their beauty will not flee, for the many-tinted fruits and seeds 
of the cranberry bush, the bittersweet, the wild rose and the winter berry, 
the crimson wands of dogwood, the golden bark of the willow and the 
evergeen of the spruce and pine stand out the more vividly for their drapery 
of sparkling frost or fleecy snow. 
In obtaining all or any portion of this, some rules, however, may be fol- 
lowed to advantage. 
While an occasional fine or rare specimen may stand somewhat apart ° 
on the lawn, it is well to keep most of the plantings more compact, though 
of course with irregular outline of bed. 
In these plantings the different species or kindred species should be 
massed, rather than scattered promiscuously throughout the borders; the 
latter arrangement would give a spotted effect throughout the season, but 
E 
