OUR MOUNTAIN GARDEN 



as the third year, nevertheless assume 

 then their ultimate habit of growth, and 

 cease to look like crooked sticks. Shrubs 

 in the third year generally send up 

 big, healthy shoots, very different from 

 those grown in the first two years, and 

 make bushes of themselves; and I have 

 grown trees by the hundred, in a richly 

 manured nursery, which were ten feet 

 high and perfectly characteristic in form 

 by the autumn of the third year. And 

 even in the wild, a seedling tree, if in a 

 good location, will assume its permanent 

 habit of growth in the third summer. So 

 I say again, advisedly, that it takes 

 nature three years to bring any hardy 

 plant from the seed to the point where 

 it is sufficiently matured to be "estab- 

 lished." Nor is there the least use in 

 trying to hurry her in the process at 

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