FORESTRY ON THE COUNTRY ESTATE 



11 



LAGOON MADE BY DREDGING A SWAMPY BOTTOM. 



living green walls or a tangle of gray 

 twigs in winter. Any strikingly beauti- 

 ful tree that does not grow over-large 

 may be used in the same way silver 

 pine, scarlet oak, purple beach, green 

 ash, ginko, sassafras, dogwood ; and 

 araucaria and deodar if you live south 

 of the 40th parallel. Sink them well 

 into the edge of the thicket so as to ap- 

 pear part of it. 



In the second method of treatment 

 you will get results by judicious cutting 

 and planting. You have many fine 

 colors available on your palette, "if you 

 live anywhere in the range of gray 

 birch Atlantic Coast west to Ohio and 

 south to Virginia you have a wonder- 

 ful tree to work with. With its slender 

 white trunks and its feathery, quaking 

 foliage it is a strikingly interesting ob- 

 ject, and a very few of them will tone 

 up any thicket. They will grow any- 

 where, swamp or sand barren, and there 

 really seems no excuse for their not oc- 

 curring naturally farther West. 



Another good thicket color is the 

 Judas tree, circis canadensis. In the 

 early spring its abundant pink flowers 

 are out almost as soon as the red maples 

 and its handsome green leaves help out 

 the feathery birch foliage. You can get 

 it at any nursery. 



Thinning out is always good and salu- 

 tatory in the thicket. In doing so, spare 

 the sour gums, as its deep reds in the 

 autumn are wonderful and the blue- 

 black berries are a feast for robins, 

 cedarbirds and flickers ! Save the flow- 

 ering dogwoods for their white blooms 

 in the spring and red berries in the fall ; 

 and favor the wild cherries for their 

 fragrant blossoms and handsome fruit. 

 The trees to go will undoubtedly be 

 black jack, scrub oak, yellow maple, 

 thorn and alder. If there is a mature 

 sweet gum anywhere near, there will 

 surely be several young ones in the 

 thicket. Be on the lookout for them, 

 and clear away the brush about them, 



