FERNS, FENCES, AND WHITE BIRCHES 187 



a snowbank and pencil their frosty tracery against a wall 

 of hemlocks. 



This is the simple material that has been used with 

 such wonderful effect. In the gardens hereabout they 

 have flanked their alleys with the birches, for even when 

 fully grown their habit is more poplar-like than spread- 

 ing, and many plants, like lilies, requiring partial shade 

 flourish under them ; while for fences and screens the 

 trees are planted in small groups, with either stones and 

 ferns, or shrubs set thick between, and the most beauti- 

 ful winter fence that Evan says he has ever seen in all his 

 wanderings amid costly beauty was when, last winter, in 

 being here to measure for some plans, he came sud- 

 denly upon an informal boundary and screen combined, 

 over fifty feet in length, made of white birches, the 

 groups of twos and threes set eight or ten feet apart, the 

 gaps being filled by Japanese barberries laden with their 

 scarlet fruit. Even now this same screen is beautiful 

 enough with its shaded greens, while the barberries 

 in their blooming time, and the crimson leaf glow of 

 autumn, give it four distinct seasons. 



The branches of the white birch being small and 

 thickly set, they may be trimmed at will, and windows 

 thus opened here and there without the look of artifice 

 or stiffness. 



