342 PRACTICAL GARDENING. 



equalized. It is made all at once, and, as you can see every 

 branch that will grow, you can rub off the shoots that will be 

 in the way, or of no use, that the strength of the plant may 

 be confined to those we require, and that will add to the beauty 

 of the specimen, always keeping the plant down, to prevent 

 the bottoms from becoming bare, than which nothing looks 

 worse. One of the most essential points towards this is plenty 

 of room. Plants never grow well crowded. If they have not 

 plenty of air and light below, the leaves fall, and the stems 

 get bare, the lower branches die — these are invariable results 

 of crowding. It is the room that is given to specimens that 

 enables them to grow so perfect, whereas it is the want of 

 light and air that renders so many plants in groups and bor- 

 ders so unsightly; and, unless it be to hide something, there 

 is no occasion to crowd plants anywhere. Generally speaking, 

 a belt is planted on purpose to form a tolerably close mass of 

 foliage. In such case, the principal object is to prevent, by 

 timely pruning, one plant from smothering another. The 

 strongest growers are planted further back, to prevent this ; 

 but, unless constrained, there will always be a disposition in 

 some to encroach upon others. As a general rule, the most 

 common must be sacrihced to keep the best in permanent 

 good order. As in good planting of mixed clumps and borders 

 — the immediate effect being wanted — there is an abundance 

 of common things intermixed with better, you are enabled to 

 remove many altogether as the more valuable grow; some 

 attention must be paid to this from year to year, because it is 

 necessary to remove them before instead of after they do mis- 

 chief Again, as in good planting the evergreens ought always 

 to form the main feature, some care must be taken not to 

 destroy this very desirable character, because, if we remove 

 even common evergreens, to make room for the deciduous 

 plants, we spoil the -^vinter scene altogether, by showing the 

 bare stumps of leafless, though perhaps good, deciduous plants. 

 It is to be borne in mind, that evergreens drop their leaves as 

 well as others, but they do not drop them all at once, and 

 never until the succession of new ones has clothed the plant. 

 In newly-planted evergreens of a large size, or that have suf- 

 fered a little by their removal, the entire foliage will often 

 drop as the buds swell for new ones. Xext to retaining all 

 their foliage in health, which is the perfection of removing, it 

 is good to see all the leaves drop, as a sign that the injury is 



