82 HAND-BOOK OF PRACTICAL 



VARIETIES OF TREES. 



The Iloney Locust, or Three Thorned Acacia, Osage Orange, 

 and Buckthorn, are the only three, deciduous plants that we 

 recommend for permanent hedges as barriers. The first and last 

 named may be relied upon in almost any section of our country ; 

 but the Osage Orange is, in many locations, unsuited, because 

 from extreme cold it is liable to kill out. Fancy hedges of 

 various flowering shrubs are frequently made as boundaries to 

 garden or road line, where cattle are not pastured. These like 

 the varieties of evergreens, cannot be depended upon as barriers 

 of protection. Among evergreens, the Norway Spruce and the 

 varieties of Arbor Vitas are most commonly used and popular ; 

 but all evergreens will bear the shears in the pruning, so that the 

 planter may choose variety at his pleasure. The practice of 

 alternating varieties in the row is often equally as good as one 

 distinct variety, while it gives a unique, characteristic appearance 

 to the line. For instance, the Norway Spruce and American 

 Black Spruce are planted alternately ; so also Ilemlock alternate 

 Cembrian Pine or Lawson's Cypress, where the latter will bear 

 the winter. The American White Spruce, White Pine, Corsican 

 Pine, each and all are good. 



Where trees are planted for screens, to grow twelve to twenty 

 feet high, they should be at least two and a half feet apart; and 

 it is often better to make the line a little irregular, by placing an 

 additional tree of another variety some three or four feet back of 

 the main line. Dwarf hedges of evergreens are sometimes 

 planted, or may be to mark the boundary of a flower garden or 

 croquet ground, etc. Varieties of the Box, Evergreen Thorn, 

 Junipers, Kalmias and Yews may be used with certainty in many 

 sections, but the Mahonia is not always an evergreen, but a 

 sub-evergreen. 



