THE AMATEUR GARDEN 



the ground. And even if sometimes they do, 

 they take so long to grow enough to do it, and 

 are so soon gone with the first cold blast, that 

 the things they are to hide are for the most of 

 the year not hidden. Besides which, even at 

 their best moments, when undoubtedly they are 

 very beautiful, they have not a sufficiently sub- 

 stantial look to be good company for the solid 

 structure they are set against. Sweetly, mod- 

 estly, yet obstinately, they confess to every 

 passer-by that they did not come, but were 

 put there and were put there only last spring. 

 Shrubs, contrariwise, give a feeling that they 

 have sprung and grown there in the course of 

 nature and of the years, and so convey to the 

 house what so many American homes stand in 

 want of — a quiet air of being long married and 

 a mother of growing children. 



"Flowering shrubs of well-chosen kinds are in 

 leaf two-thirds of the year, and their leafless 

 branches and twigs are a pleasing relief to the 

 structure's cold nakedness even through the 

 winter. I have seen a house, whose mistress 

 was too exclusively fond of annuals, stand wait- 



72 



