EVERGREEN TREES. 57 



CHAPTER V. 



EVERGREEN TREES. 



The use of evergreens is becoming yearly more and more 

 appreciated, both as effective in ornamental planting and as an 

 item of practical economy in the matter of hedges and screens 

 for protection of half hardy plants, orchards, or buildings from 

 cold and harsh winds and storms. 



In ornamental planting, their use is often very imperfectly 

 understood, and many places are rendered gloomy and dark 

 from their too free use in the foreground, or immediately about 

 the house. There is a great deal of beauty in evergreens, but 

 as a class for effective scenery creative of varied beauty, they 

 have not the qualities that are embraced in the changing char- 

 acter from month to month of deciduous trees. For perfect 

 scenery, however, covering the entire year, it would be impos- 

 sible to dispense with evergreens. If used judiciously in 

 arrangement, sparingly in the foreground, and using those of 

 the lightest and most vivid shades of green in foliage, grouping 

 them at the same time with mountain ash, euonymus or straw- 

 berry tree, etc., with their red clusters of fruit in winter, and 

 massing the back-ground with varieties of dark foliage, great 

 effect may be produced, and a pleasant life-like character given 

 to grounds that otherwise in the winter season would be barren 

 and dreary. 



Some few years since, many regarded the transplanting of 

 evergreens as one of the difficult items in arboriculture, requir- 

 ing the skill and experience of a practical gardener. It was 

 also counted unsafe to move them except at particular seasons 



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