116 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



wind. These are veiy different in character from the dust which 

 is visible only in sunbeams, and which settles very slowl^'. 



It was announced that on the next Saturday a paper on " Hor- 

 ticulture and Design in the Surroundings of Houses," would be 

 read by Charles Eliot, landscape architect, of Boston. 



BUSINESS MEETING. 



Saturday, March 16, 1889. 



An adjourned meeting of the Society was holden at half-past 

 eleven o'clock, the President, Henry P. Walcott, in the chair. 

 No business was brought before the meeting and it 

 Adjourned to Saturday, March 23, 1889, at half-past eleven 

 o'clock. 



MEETING FOR DISCUSSION. 



HORTICULTDRE AND DESIGN IN THE SURROUNDINGS OF HoUSES. 

 By Charles Eliot, Landscape Architect, Boston. 



The recent enormous increase in the variety of the products of 

 the plant nursery has supplied the designer of house-surroundings 

 with much new material, but has not affected the main principles 

 of his art. Without counting fruit trees, an ordinary American 

 nursery catalogue now offers for sale some five hundred sorts of 

 trees and shrubs and an equal number of herbaceous perennials. 

 The demand for nursery-grown plants — that is for plants trained 

 to bear moving — is great and growing. 



Possibly the time may come when thousands of trees will be 

 wanted for timber plantations, but at present in America the first 

 and foremost use for nurser^'-grown trees is the provision of shelter 

 from cold wind, or hot sun for men's houses and crops. Almost 

 two-thirds of our country must plant trees for this purpose, and 

 Western nurserymen will be called upon to grow vast numbers of 

 quick and hardy sorts. To shade and adorn streets trees must 

 also be wanted. In the more or less arid West they are particu- 

 Jarly needed, and there they will be planted even though irrigation 



