352 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
specimen, or a clump of three or four mountain pine. In summer they are 
as ornamental as a flower bed—more so on small grounds, and less care; 
in winter such a rest to the eyes from the prevailing bareness and dreariness 
of a winter landscape. Ii every lot in a village or city could thus be 
adorned with evergreens according to its capacity and situation, in a few 
years it would assume an entirely different aspect, would not be recognized 
by the oldest inhabitant. If the property owners of a village or city wish 
to improve or beautify their town, make it a town to be proud of, talked 
about at home and abroad, to attract strangers and home seekers, they 
could do nothing more effective than to invest a small sum of money for 
each lot in evergreens, and then take care of them. It would be the best 
investment they ever made. A large and the better class of people natur- 
ally desire—will pay considerable sometimes to gratify that desire—to live 
in a pretty and attractive town. I believe the beauty and attractiveness, 
either natural or acquired. of a town has much to do with the general 
morality of that town. A beautiful, homelike place attracts a better class 
of people. I can hardly believe a really hardened, vicious individual would 
feel at home in a place whose every lot was adorned to make it a thing 
of beauty. He would feel out of place and hasten to get out of that place 
and hie himself to one where the surroundings did not continually remind 
him of the great Creator. A person of low and degraded habits or in- 
stincts never courts the acquaintance of Dame Nature, but rather seeks 
the slums of the city where his eye never rests on a blade of grass, a flower 
or a green tree. 
I have mentioned the Mountain Pine (Pinus montana). It is the ever- 
green par excellence for the masses. I can’t see why any one should not 
succeed with it. It is a shrub, very ornamental, hardy, easily grown and 
may be used to great advantage on either large or small grounds. The 
Pyramidal Arbor Vite is another beautiful little tree or shrub, suitable for 
both large or small grounds, but particularly adapted to small ones. It 
grows upright, like the Irish Juniper, ‘and can be kept in perfect pyramidal 
form. It will bear shearing. It keeps its bright color through the year, as 
does the Siberian Arbor Vite, which is much prettier and seems hardier 
here than the American Arbor Vite. It can be sheared and kept in any 
form desired, and is very ornamental, either on large or small grounds. 
There is the Juniper (Juniper communis), hardy here, grows well in dry 
situations, and can be made very useful and ornamental. For a low hedge 
or screen we have the Juniper Savin, which leaves nothing desired in the way 
of hardiness and surety in growing. It never grows over four or five feet, 
and as it bears shearing closely it can be kept at any desired height. It is 
beautiful along a drive, for borders of lots, to shut off a back lot from the 
lawn, or anywhere that a hedge is desired, and nothing in the way of 
utility or ornamentation is so desirable as a well kept hedge. It is also 
pretty on small lots as a single specimen or in clumps, and may be sheared 
to suit the fancy of the planter. These hedges for the first two years should 
be kept free from weeds and grass by stirring the surface of the soil fre- 
quently or by mulching; the former method, I believe, will give the greater 
growth. After that, with an annual pruning they care for themselves. 
In buying evergreens be sure and get two or three times transplanted 
plants. These, though the tops may be small, will have a large quantity 
of fibrous roots. It does not matter about the top so much if you have 
