EFFECTIVE IMPROVEMENTS ON THE HOME GROUNDS. 387 



By the manner in which this subject has been pUinged into, it 

 must be evident that only a brief investigation of the question is to 

 be made. To treat it exhaustively would be to go into the details 

 of landscape architecture to a degree that would not be necessary 

 to the purpose of this paper. What is desired is to bring into promi- 

 nence a few ways in which the horticultural art may be applied and 

 the home grounds thereby made beautiful and truly homelike with 

 an expenditure of money really small, if the purchasing, the planting 

 and the culture are all done intelligently. The evergreen is here 

 given the first place, because it is the writer's opinion that the ever- 

 green is the most important factor in the arrangement of any 

 grounds, public or private, in the north, where the eye must view 

 the landscape during the entire twelve months of the year. It is not 

 the purpose to discuss details of landscape architecture as applied 

 to large estates or parks. Our subject here is the home ground, 

 and we will assume that the yard is of medium size, that it is com- 

 paratively level and that the conditions are about the same as we 

 ordinarily find in the average town or country home. What we 

 want to do is to plant it judiciously with trees, shrubs and plants, 

 that will, by their beauty, make the home an object of affection to 

 all members of the family, old and young. It is a mistake to put 

 all the money and attention inside the four walls of the living rooms 

 in the house. So much can be done with a small amount of money 

 in the yard that we sometimes wonder that people are so prone to 

 ignore both the possibility of improvement and the importance of it. 



Next to the evergreen, our attention is first called to the de- 

 ciduous trees and shrubs and to the hardy herbaceous plants. This 

 latter class includes an endless variety of flowering plants, which 

 remain in the ground over winter, the roots being hardy and able to 

 withstand our severe climate. On any grounds, they are indis- 

 pensable, and, for all practical purposes, take the place of the tender 

 annual plants, which are so much used for flower beds in city parks, 

 but which are expensive and often impractical on the home grounds. 



We then find that we have for use in the improvement of the 

 home grounds four distinct classes of plant life, evergreens, decidu- 

 ous trees, deciduous shrubs and herbaceous plants. Now, the ques- 

 tion is, how to arrange these in a manner that will prove satisfactory 

 after they have attained size and are too large to make a change pos- 

 sible. Herbaceous plants and small shrubs can, of course, be moved 

 about with little difficulty, and are, therefore, not so important 

 in this consideration, yet the necessity of having a well developed 

 plan in mind, even in the arrangement of the very smallest yards, is 



