ORNAMENTATION OF HOME GROUNDS. 451 



we found the wild black currant and the wild gooseberry, which 

 have fairly palatable fruit, and many others which you would 

 find very useful in carrying out a large piece of planting. The 

 native material can be picked up nearby, especially along the 

 rivers and ravines. Using these on the outside of the property, 

 it is very easy to screen views of the barnyard and make an at- 

 tractive planting along fences and borders to the lawn. Then 

 as you approach the house, the varieties which we see grown so 

 widely in the nurseries, lilacs, honeysuckles, snowberries, syrin- 

 gas and hydrangeas, all have their place and should be used 

 as widely as possible. 



In such planting work it is always wise to plan before you 

 put in the beds what the uses are of the planting. For instance, 

 if you wish to make a high bank of shrubs in front of the yard 

 you would perhaps use such high plants as sumach, red-berried 

 elder, honeysuckle and other plants of that character. If you 

 want to frame in a view from the house, perhaps looking over 

 the valley of a river or down a creek, then use lower material 

 which grows well, such as Indian currant, snowberry, thun- 

 bergia, barberry and hydrangea. In planting around the gardens, 

 of course, the use of native material is not exactly in good taste 

 for the reason that in your garden you wish to have as many 

 flowers in as little space as possible. This you don't get from 

 the native material to such a degree as you do from the other 

 horticultural material which you find listed in the nursery 

 catalogs. 



Then, of course, the use of appropriate trees is also im- 

 portant. For instance, if you wish to secure a little color around 

 the house, use a mountain ash or a wild thorn or a low catalpa 

 instead of planting a tall elm or the hackberry or the ash or 

 basswood, which comes to perfection when it is fifty or seventy- 

 five feet high. The importance of studying this planting before 

 it is done almost determines the success of it. We see much 

 planting done which is out of place, being poorly selected and 

 improperly spaced and unsatisfactory because of the fact that 

 certain kinds do not grow well together. 



Around every city it is easy to find a lot of planting done 

 which is improperly spaced. The theory of spacing in landscape 

 planting is this : The shrubbery should be studied before it is 

 used as to its permanent height, its permanent spread and the 

 character of the stem as it comes from the ground. Then when 



