io8 HOW TO LIVE IN THE COUNTRY 



Walking through Senator Root's famous forest 

 plantations, of which the country has heard a good 

 deal lately, I found the ground dotted everywhere 

 with miniature maples and elms and white ash and 

 butternuts, and not a few delicate young hemlocks 

 that most exquisite of all evergreens. Along 

 the lee of his older woods there were thousands of 

 small beeches, inviting the planter to use them. 

 Nature could have done all the forest planting that 

 was necessary, and would have done it far better 

 than even Mr. Pinchot himself, if left alone. 



I advise you, if you want anything of the kind, to 

 shut out the cattle and see what Nature will accom- 

 plish. She knows what the soil wants, and then she 

 knows what the shrubs and trees want. She makes 

 no mistakes in the way of trying to grow chestnuts 

 where there should be maples, or pines where there 

 should be only deciduous tress. Her forests and 

 shrubberies are wonderfully correlated, and in in- 

 finite variety. 



But now let us turn to our own shrubbery plant- 

 ing, making sure that we do not foolishly undertake 

 the conventional. You already have a general plan 

 of your place, and your house is built into the plan. 

 You did not shape the grounds to your house, but 

 your house to the grounds. In this process you have 

 had suggested to you, I do not doubt, places where 

 you would like to plant a shrubbery, or a tree lawn, 

 or a flower lawn, or a grass lawn. 



How far we can follow our first impulses we shall 



