THE COUNTRY HOME [chaptkr 



and pastures contain varieties that are seldom seen 

 about our houses. Some of these are overlooked 

 only because common. I have discussed them suf- 

 ficiently in another chapter on lawns and shrub- 

 beries, and here I refer to them only for their 

 flowers and their fitness for winter foliage. The 

 world holds nothing finer than those fringes along 

 the forests of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Vir- 

 ginia, where the laurels and the rhododendrons in- 

 terweave their arms over hundreds of acres, and 

 seem to begrudge room for other shrubs equally 

 glorious. Along the Susquehanna nature has 

 miles of gardens finer than those of the Tuileries. 

 I have looked down the mountain-sides of Penn- 

 sylvania over such vast fields of flowers that I have 

 felt the utter impotence of any landscape artist to 

 plant a garden. You must learn to see the beauty 

 of what is common. You will be especially inter- 

 ested in studying the variations in every-day shrubs 

 — in growth and in bloom. I have found a superb 

 weeping choke cherry, and although weeping 

 things are mostly morbid freaks of nature not to be 

 multiplied, this is elegant both in form and fruit. 

 It is constantly to be borne in mind that shrubs, 

 when once planted, make comparatively little work, 



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