254 ON RURAL EMBELLISHMENT. 



for, and most of us expect. Twenty years ago, at forty 

 years of age, we commenced the cultivation of what was 

 termed a barren, untameable common, not an acre of which 

 had been cultivated, and on which a tree or shrub had 

 never been planted by the hand of man. We have now 

 growing in our court-yard, comprising about half an acre, 

 and in the highway in front of it, fifty species of forest and 

 ornamental trees, many of them forty and fifty feet high, 

 more than fifty species of ornamental shrubs, not including 

 the rose, besides a vast number of herbaceous, ornamen- 

 tal, and bulbous and flowering perennial plants — the great- 

 est number of which, in all their variety and hue of foli- 

 age, flowers, and fruit, may be embraced in a single view 

 from the piazza. Most of our fruits have been raised by 

 us from the seed, or propagated by grafting or budding. 

 Yet we can enumerate more than two hundred kinds, in- 

 cluding varieties, which we are now in the habit of gath- 

 ering annually from trees, vines, &c. of our own planting. 

 We feel grateful to God for these rich and abundant bles- 

 sings, and for the impulse which prompted our labor. We 

 have adduced our own example, not in a spirit of vaunting, 

 but to convince the young and the middle-aged, that there 

 is abundant reason for them to plant, with the hope of en- 

 joying the fruits of their labor. The old should plant from 

 an obligation they owe to society, and for the requital 

 of which they have but a short period allowed them. 

 The young should plant for the double purpose of ben- 

 efiting themselves and their children. 



We would by no means advise that the farmer should 

 confine himself to mere ornamental trees. There are 

 many fruit-trees that are not only ornamental but useful, 

 about dwellings, as the cherry, pear, apple, quince, &c. 



There is not a spring or an autumn in which a few 

 hours cannot be spared, without detriment to the labors 

 of the farm, to plant out fruit and ornamental trees and 

 shrubbery about the dwelling, and but very few hours are 

 requisite. There is no great art required in the business. 

 The holes for the plants should be dug larger and deeper 

 than the size of the roots, in order that these may be sur- 

 rounded on all sides by rich surface mould, into which the 



