THE MINNESOTA 



HORTICULTURIST. 



VOL. 30. NOVEMBER, 1902. No. 11. 



LANDSCAPE ADORNMENT A UNIVERSAL 

 OBLIGATION. 



JONATHAN FREEMAN, AUSTIN. 



This subject when assigned to me was not accepted for con- 

 sideration because I consider myself an expert professionally in this 

 line, or because my environment in life has been such that I have 

 been enabled to largely illustrate in my own surroundings, as a 

 farmer, the truth of the above assertion, in which I certainly firmly 

 believe. My childhood was spent on the old homestead, in one of 

 the beautiful valleys of the Catskills. How vividly I recall the en- 

 joyment received, from my earliest remembrance, in gazing upon 

 many of Dame Nature's adornments, as illustrated by the entranc- 

 ing sunrise over Overlook Mountain, now a much frequented resort ; 

 the bewildering beauty in spring of the changing, emerald shades 

 in the foliage which gradually clothed the maple, beech, birch and 

 other trees on the sides of the mountains that surrounded our 

 home valley (one by two miles) on the four sides; the gorgeous 

 variety of colors of the same foliage in autumn, when nature's work 

 for that season was completed ; and then in the late fall, when arising 

 in the morning after a night's rain in the valley, imagine the feel- 

 ings of a boy, when he looked out upon the mountains glistening in 

 the sun's rays, in dazzling white from the soft snow clinging to the 

 pine, hemlock and other trees from which the foliage had not yet 

 fallen ! Since those early days I have seen considerable of Mother 

 Earth's surface in her varied inequalities, as adorned according to 

 her own laws, and also as adorned by the truly civilized man, fol- 

 lowing the havoc made by the uncivilized vandal, whether his color 

 be white, black or red. 



The arrangement of the home grounds comprises extent of 

 lawn, number and variety of trees and shrubs, location of flower 

 and foliage beds, driveways and paths, and rightful adjustment of 



