CHAPTER XI 

 A FEW HINTS ON LANDSCAPE GARDENING* 



NOVEMBER is, above all others, the tree-planting 

 month over the wide Union. f Accordingly, every 

 one who has a rood of land looks about him at 

 this season to see what can be done to improve and em- 

 bellish it. Some have bought new places where they have 

 to build and create everything in the way of home scenery, 

 and they, of course, will have their heads full of shade trees 

 and fruit trees, ornamental shrubs and evergreens, lawns 

 and walks, and will tax their imagination to the utmost to 

 see in the future all the varied beauty which they mean to 

 work out of the present blank fields that they have taken 

 in hand. These, look for the most rapid-growing and effec- 

 tive materials, with which to hide their nakedness, and 

 spread something of the drapery of beauty over their prem- 

 ises, in the shortest possible time. Others have already a 

 goodly stock of foliage and shade, but the trees have been 

 planted without taste, and by thinning out somewhat here, 

 making an opening there, and planting a little yonder, they 

 hope to break up the stiff boundaries, and thus magically 

 to convert awkward angles into graceful curves, and har- 

 monious outlines. Whilst others, again, whose gardens and 

 pleasure grounds have long had their earnest devotion, are 

 busy turning over the catalogues of the nurseries in search 

 of rare and curious trees and shrubs to add still more novelty 

 and interest to their favorite lawns and walks. As the 

 pleasure of creation may be supposed to be the highest 



* Original date of November, 1851. 



t The advantages of November as a tree-planting month seem to be 

 generally overlooked. Exclusive spring planting is too commonly ac- 

 cepted as the only way. F. A. "\Y. 



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