AND GROUNDS. 145 



syringas, and whatever else is known to be beautiful and easily ob- 

 tained, are crowded along the side fences. Mrs. A. insists that a 

 space shall be left on both sides of the main-walk for her flowers. 

 Accordingly the beds are formed as shown on the plan, and planted 

 with all the fine flowering bulbs and annuals that she can get 

 plants or seeds of. There is still wanting a feature that some 

 neighboring place has, viz. : one or more fanciful trellises master- 

 pieces of delicate carpentry, brilliant with white paint upon which 

 to train pillar roses. " There's just the place for them," says Mrs. 

 A., "just in the middle of the yard, on each side," and there they 

 are placed. 



We need not follow their planting further. The plan (on the 

 right) shows how the place will be filled in two or three years. 

 Each latest planting is put in the most convenient open space, and 

 every spring brings some new candidate for a place. At the end 

 of eight or ten years let us look in upon the ground and see the 

 result. There should be a home-picture, with its encircling fore- 

 ground, its open middle distance, its vine-clad cottage centre, 

 smiling like a speaking portrait well framed. What will it be, if it 

 has been planted and kept in this mode, still so common in 

 suburban places ? A mass of agglomerated and tangled verdure. 

 Pass along the street, and the lovely foliage of the two willows 

 marks the spot, but beneath their overshadowing foliage the ever- 

 greens and other trees have a feeble existence, and their spindling 

 forms as they essay, with prim pertness, to stretch above the 

 crowding shrubs and tangled grass around them to maintain their 

 individuality, are met by a wet blanket of the willow's shade in 

 summer, and her damp old clothes in the autumn. Straggling 

 rose-bushes and overgrown shrubs elbow e'ach other over the walk, 

 and quarrel for space with the grass and old annuals that try in 

 vain to get their share of room and light. As some English re- 

 viewer says of the bedrooms of little gothic cottages " somewhere 

 around among the gables" may be observed of all the pretty 

 things that have with so much care been planted on this place 

 they are to be found somewhere among the bushes ; and behind 

 all, as if the one great object of planting were to hide it out of 

 sight, is a cottage. 



