44 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



artistic place that is almost enclosed by a quite narrow planting of 

 ordinary trees and shrubs, with a mass of trees back of the house 

 and a single magnificent specimen tree on the front lawn. This is 

 a satisfactory arrangement, as an example of fine architecture is 

 satisfactory, but all the variety, interest, and pleasure of garden- 

 ing is lost. 



In larger grounds, where a vegetable garden and perhaps an 

 orchard are features, the opportunities for using hardy shrubs and 

 plants are much greater and more varied. The vegetable garden 

 may be made the most interesting and delightful place imaginable. 

 Usually it is simply a field of vegetables fully exposed from all points 

 of the ground and very often unsightly. Now the vegetable garden 

 should be concealed from the lawn and house, and this necessity 

 at once suggests a border, or boundary planting, of shrubs and 

 herbaceous plants as described for the smaller suburban lot. This 

 planting should not only hide the garden but should hide its out- 

 lines, which are usually rectangular. The garden itself should be 

 enclosed with a hedge, which should show from the inside of the 

 garden but never from the lawn. California privet makes a very 

 satisfactory garden hedge, but where that is not hardy, hemlock 

 spruce can be used. Nothing makes a finer hedge than this, but 

 it is slower growing than the privet, of which I have seen a 

 perfect hedge five feet high made in three seasons, starting with 

 two year old plants. A convenient walk from the house should 

 pass through the shrubbery into the garden, and of course a con- 

 venient entrance will be made for bringing in manure, etc. A 

 walk should be laid out all around the garden five to six feet wide,, 

 with a border for flowers six feet wide between the walk and the 

 hedge. There should be also two walks six feet wide crossing 

 each other at right angles and dividing the garden into four 

 rectangular pieces of about equal size. On both sides of these 

 walks. Grapes, dwarf Pears, and small. fruits can be planted and 

 also on the inner sides of the outer Avalk, if desired. The walks 

 can be iruide of any material that is convenient, and need not 

 be expensive. In one garden that I know, they are made of 

 grass and kept as a lawn would be. I know that there are 

 objections that can be urged against grass walks, but the owner of 

 the garden in question does not find them objectionable, and they 

 are certainly more pleasing to the eye than gravel walks. The 

 border between the walk and the hedge should be given up 



