LITTLE GARDENS 



sake, and If our fruit-trees flank the house, it Is 

 an easy matter to open the aisles before our 

 doors and windows, and so give reach of the eye 

 into comforting distances. 



As centers in plant groups or geometrized 

 plans, or as bits of form and color in dull spots, 

 we may use, beside the shrubs, the conifers, the 

 Japanese " blood-leaved " maple, compact and 

 colorful, the hazel, the weeping birch, the weep- 

 ing ash, and the small varieties of weeping wil- 

 low and weeping elm, but the usual city yard is 

 too small for a tree that has a lateral spread of 

 more than ten feet. We must consider propor- 

 tion, especially in the furnishing of a place that 

 custom has made disproportlonally small for our 

 needs. 



And In summer we can set out our palms and 

 rubber-plants, which have been adorning the di- 

 ning-room or parlor, sinking the pots Into the 

 beds, to secure them against the wind, keeping 

 off the insects and cutting away the dead leaves. 

 They will enjoy our tropic summer, but must be 

 taken in promptly when cool weather threatens. 

 Every one knows the rubber-plant, with its broad 

 leaves of polished green; and there is no better 

 224 



