PLANTATIONS 93 



will be found that this is a more rational process than 

 the one that undertakes to use quantities of shrubs as 

 fillers between specimens of trees and shrubs set wide 

 distances apart, and intended to remain permanently 

 after the filling shrubs have been taken away entirely. 

 The difficulty of this plan, which seems plausible at first 

 sight, and has its good side, is that the growth and fate 

 of neither the permanent plant nor the filling plant can be 

 foreseen, for any one of them may grow very much larger 

 or smaller than could be expected, or may die, when 

 much of this particular theory of arrangement would 

 come to grief. If fillers are used, low-sized shrubs and 

 vines, such as azaleas, itea virginicas, hypericums, honey- 

 suckles, rubus hispidus, and roses should be employed. 



So far as the preparation of the soil goes, in spaces 

 intended for masses of trees and shrubs they should be 

 spaded up and cultivated in large beds, whether the 

 groups be planted thickly or not, because in this way the 

 healthy and symmetrical growth of stem and foliage is so 

 much more benefited than if they are set in holes dug 

 in the grass, as is generally the fate of shrubs planted 

 some distance apart from each other. In a few years it 

 will be found that the plants will, in spaded beds, com- 

 pletely occupy the ground, and render it unnecessary to 

 cultivate them. 



It is necessary, in arranging trees and shrubs on the 

 lawn, that the situation of each shrub shall be chosen, 

 not only for its own individual exhibition of attractive 

 qualities, but for what should be the dominant idea, of 

 preserving its proper harmonious relations to the general 

 mass of which it is to form a part ; for, after all, the chief 

 function of its existence must always be to contribute 

 to the value of the lawn as a genuine picture. 



