LITTLE GARDENS 



same variety, not scattered. A field with twenty 

 trees will be spotty and complex if they are iso- 

 lated, but if arranged in a cluster, or in lines that 

 edge the property, there are seemingly more 

 trees, and certainly more lawn. One big space is 

 worth tw^enty little spaces. Nor should trees be 

 permitted to close a vista. Rather, they should 

 form a part of it. In forbidding trees to the 

 lawn I mean that they are not to be dotted over 

 it, but that does not prohibit us from using 

 small and graceful trees like the Japanese maple, 

 or weeping birch, or smoke tree, or a lilac, as 

 part of a group in a composition. Be frugal of 

 trees immediately at your doors, at least, if they 

 threaten the light and air in your rooms. I am 

 going to violate the law, myself, by having a 

 pine-tree at the corner, when I acquire the right 

 sort of corner. No other tree means so much in 

 its speech, or baffles the listener more piquantly. 

 Its mystery is its charm. In its sighing and whis- 

 pering you hear the voices of the sea, the mur- 

 mur of solitary streams, the questioning of re- 

 leased spirits, the stirring of distant hosts. Its 

 voice is large and cool, and it goes with the flash 

 of stars on January nights and the peal of the 

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