CHAPTER XVII. 



THE BEST SHRUBS. 



Deciduous shrubs are, beyond all question, the most 

 important element in planting small grounds. 



C. S. Sargent. 

 If one-tenth the trouble wasted on carpet bedding and 

 other fleeting, though costly, rubbish, had been spent on 

 flowering shrubs, our gardens would be much the better for 

 it. There are no plants so neglected as flowering shrubs. 



Wm. Robinson. 

 The wild shrubs which skirt the waysides have a beauty 

 beyond that of the cultivated exotics in spaded gardens. 



Wilson Flagg. 



To some unfortunate persons masses and borders of 

 loose growing shrubbery suggest nothing but neglected 

 roadsides and pasture grounds. The commonness of 

 such materials, and the ease with which unthoughtful 

 persons may pass them by, seem to indicate a certain 

 crudit}^, if not a real vulgarity, in the bushes and 

 branches. But this feeling is founded upon an untrained 

 sympathy, — upon a true lack of feeling for nature, — 

 upon notions of ornamental planting which are in the 

 highest degree incorrect. There is nothing so crude 

 and vulgar in gardening as an over-display of colors 

 (which are nearly always inharmonious among them- 

 selves). An appetite for these gaudy colors indicates 

 an untrained taste, just as an appetite for dime novels 

 indicates a poor taste in literature, or as a preference 

 for noisy street songs indicates a lack of training in 

 music. The more refined enjoyment and the most 

 deeply pleasurable sensations aroused by any art are 

 those which arise from delicate colorings, from subtle 

 modulations, from almost imperceptible distinctions. 

 And so the nature-lover delights in the most delicate 

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