40 



Farmers' Bulletin 1087. 



is produced from the regular placing of individual plants or by 

 massing several specimens of a kind. Such planting is only appro- 

 priate in a formal design, which on farmsteads would be in connec- 

 tion with long straight approaches or in formal gardens. 



Informal planting is the arrangement of plants irregularly, more 

 or less in the manner in which they are found in native woodlands 

 and thickets, and they may be used singly or in groups of any size 

 with any number of kinds. Planting of this kind is appropriate with 

 either a formal or an informal design and is especially adapted to 

 farmsteads and home grounds. 



In formal plantings all the plants must be set and trained to con- 

 form to the design (see figs. 4, 16, and 36), while informal plantings 



FIG. 44. Trees about and bet we 



arm buildings, 



seclusion. 



dccl shade and partial 



should be placed irregularly and trained to bring out the individual 

 characteristics of each variety, so that the result may be as varied, 

 graceful, and natural as possible. 



TREES. 



The first thought in connection with planting about a farm home 

 turns naturally to trees to provide shade. Old places in the eastern 

 part of the country, both North and South and in the Middle West, 

 and the most homelike and best-developed places in the newer parts 

 of the country have well-grown shade trees about the house and a 

 few in the work yard between the house and barn. (Fig. 44.) 

 Where a farm has been hewn out of a wooded country some fine old 

 trees will usually be found in the stock pastures, and in a few cases 

 of farms on treeless prairies some consideration has been given the 



