80 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE 



Among our plantings of feature trees in the ranks of the weepers 

 were willows, birches, mulberries, lilacs, cherries, hazels, dogwoods, 

 the light green tufted Taxodium distichum, and elm and moun- 

 tain ash, while among the cut-leaf were beech, birch, maple and 

 sumach. 



In the seven rainbow colors lined up the maples, as seen in the 

 varied shades of cut-leaved green, tri-color, gold, silver, purple 

 and red, while our golden oak was a blue-blood tree. 



In poplars were also gold and silver and in the low-growing filbert 

 the purple. These and many more yearly put forth leaf and blossom 

 to gladden all who passed their way. 



Tree Outlines. 



Each season brought its nature study hours the different shades 

 of green in the spring, the depth of color in summer, and the glorious 

 kaleidoscopic changes in autumn, but in clear winter days we could 

 best study tree outlines which centred about the two great divisions, 

 excurrent, or straight trunk to the top, as in pin oak and poplar ; and 

 the more abundant deliquescent, as seen in the trunk divided limbs of 

 elm and willow. The bark named the tree and pointed to the pole 

 as surely as the star. 



We crossed the threshold of one of the most interesting of 

 nature's doorways when on a crisp December morning by starting into 

 the woodland to learn the names of the leafless trees. Gracefully 

 branched maple, towering elm, and shagbark slivered hickory lined 

 up and answered promptly as well as the spotted plane tree, silver 

 sheened birch and clean smooth limbed beech. It was child's play to 

 niche the evergreens but the vast majority of the trees seemed a 

 sealed book, yet ere willow and maple flowered we had mastered one 

 secret of the woodland through bark, trunk, and limb. 



Horticultural Alphabet. 



We strove to grow at least a single specimen of all plants found 

 in nurseries from one end of our country to the other that our climate 

 and soil would support Careful planning and thorough cultivation 

 gave us a rare anthology of flowers, and it was surprising how many 

 grew to maturity, spite of infant diseases, and indefatigable, virulent 

 enemies, but the nursery was a grand tree and shrub feeder, and from 

 it were replaced all dead or sickly plants. The bare ground could 

 scarcely be discerned through swirl of leaf and bloom that glorified 

 the arboretum. Where it could be done to advantage, we planted 

 thickly to get immediate results ; notably in the chubby, fibrous-rooted 

 chaps, easy movers ; and sparsely in long, tap-rooted species that 

 uproot grudgingly, filling the spaces with the former. When elbows 

 touched, a Patrick, a spade and a wheelbarrow, together with an 

 overcast day and seventy-five per cent, prospect of rain almost 

 invariably reclaimed additional land to floral possibilities, and the 



