448 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



planting and embellishing of the place, and may be 

 thinned out from year to year as the trees crowd each 

 other, or may be wanted for progressive improvement 

 and separate planting, until as the place advances and 

 the border becomes annually thinned for this purpose 

 it is at last reduced simply to such a number of plants, 

 (which must be suffered to remain), as are required to 

 produce the effects and objects above described. 



During the first year or so, the proprietor may, at 

 his leisure, study the planting of his place, without 

 the loss of that time so precious to all good Americans, 

 as his trees are already growing not in their final 

 place, but in his border nursery. To do this effectu- 

 ally and properly he must employ a quantity of stakes 

 or poles ten to twelve feet high, and by placing first 

 a stake where he thinks a tree should be planted, 

 and then several smaller stakes at such a distance 

 around it as his books or his own knowledge may in- 

 form him will be the extension of the tree w T hen .full 

 grown. By carefully observing this collection of stakes 

 from his point of view, w T hich, as a general rule should 

 be the principal room of the house, he will at once see 

 whether it is in the right place, whether it is too near 

 the road or walk, or will injure a view. When satisfied 

 by many observations and it would be well if made 

 from many points of view, all, however, subservient to 

 the principal point that the centre stake is correctly 

 placed, let him substitute for it a small stake eight or 

 ten inches high, with the name of the tree to be planted 

 there legibly written on it. In the Autumn or Spring, 

 whichever may be the proper time for transplanting 

 let the hole be dug at leisure, properly and care- 

 fully prepared, and let a tree be selected from the 

 border nursery on a damp or rainy day, and as properly 

 and carefully planted. Pursue this course with all the 

 single trees, groups, and masses to be planted on the 

 grounds, and if judiciously done the most complete 



