OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES 



decoration, or such as a severe taste would 

 commend — and yet I cannot but think ihat a Ht- 

 tle trail of fiery flowers, scattered, as it were, 

 upon a bank of lawn, and spelling out some 

 graceful name (of thehomestead) , which should 

 be discernible only one swift moment as the 

 train flashed by, while to one looking forward 

 or backward, it should be only a careless ribbon 

 of flowers flecking the green — I say I can 

 hardly fancy that this would smack of tawdri- 

 ness. However this may be, devices there are, 

 innumerable, for conferring grace upon such 

 sudden slopes as I have hinted at: a slope to 

 the north will carry admirably its tufts of 

 rhododendron and of kalmia, or its confused 

 tangle of hemlocks and Lawson Cypress. 



The English ivy, too, will grow admirably 

 in such situations, upon a ground surface, tak- 

 ing root here and there, and covering all the 

 lesser inequalities, with its glossy network of 

 leaves. Such condition of growth, moreover, 

 (trailing over the surface of the ground,) in- 

 sures protection by snows; or, if that be want- 

 ing, a thin coating of litter spread over the 

 creeper will be an ample defence. The ivy is 

 winter-killed, not so much by extreme cold, as 

 by sudden alternations of temperature, and ex- 

 posure of its stiffened leaves to the scalding 



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