132 



The Canadian Horticulturist. 



that year I had no first crop of "currant worms." On May 23, '93, "Noted 

 about 100 very small sawflies in a single leaf of gooseberry," and a few days 

 later they were sprayed and killed. The lesson to be learnt is that prevention is 

 better than cure. It was no more labor to spray the bushes on May 17th, '92, 

 than on May 21st, '91, but in the one year my bushes had all their leaves to 

 elaborate sap with, and in the other year they hadn't. 



W. E. Saunders. 

 London, Ont. 



ARRANGING GROUNDS. 



HE first essential of success in arranging grounds is the 

 ability to recognize the characteristic and salient features of 

 a place so as to work in harmony with them instead of 

 coming into conflict with nature. To this end the indi- 

 vidual quality of the surroundings of any place ought to be 

 carefully studied before a tree is planted, a structure is 

 erected or a path is laid. Few places, even when compara- 

 tively small, are so dull or monotonous that they are without a single feature 

 which is worth emphasizing, and toward which, as a centre, the artist's thought 

 is constantly directed. This may be a distant prospect, or it may be a craggy 

 ledge, a strip of woodland, a noble tree, or only a pleasing sweep of surface. 

 When this commanding feature is selected, all the other elements in a consistent 

 scheme of landscape gardening are made subordinate and accessory to it. Of 

 course, this central idea must be distinctive to be interesting, and in carrying it 

 out, if it is to remain distinctive, we must not follow precedent too closely. 

 Men too often plant certain trees in a certain way because other people have 

 set them so, and in this way they are apt to make their estates humdrum and 

 monotonous from lack of individuality. True, if a place is simply one of a 

 hundred similar ones, like a regulation house and lot in a suburban town, there 

 is little to do with such a featureless subject besides some formal planting, whose 

 lines will be determined mainly by the size and position of the house; and such 

 arrangements, when guided by good taste, can, at' least, be made interesting. 



In a region, however, of open farm-land, or in a woodland opening, or near 

 the sea, the proper way is to study natural effects and subtly to conform all 

 artifices to the suggestions of nature in the neighborhood. A great mass of 

 rock, instead of being concealed by trees and shrubbery, should be made the 

 most of in the outlook, and its lines of rugged strength should not be softened 

 away, or its proportions belittled by any pettiness in its surroundings. If the 

 approach to a dwelling is through a native forest-growth, this naturalness should 

 not be marred by the introduction of species which do not belong to that region. 

 There are enough native under-shrubs which are desirable in themselves, and 

 which will be doubly so in such a place, where they help to emphasize the 

 absence of artificiality, --Garden and Forest. 



