Special Features 195 



need not be so abundant. The common oaks, elms, and 

 chestnuts will be the most appropriate of these, with any- 

 other indigenous species common to the locality. Such plan- 

 tations should always be pretty dense, with a lower growth 

 of the commoner shrubs to give richness, massiveness, and 

 depth. 



Very showy or very rare and exotic plants will be entirely 

 out of character as specimens in such a park. Ornamental 

 trees that are not conspicuously peculiar may be admitted, 

 though not liberally, and scarcely at all if they flower much. 

 White-blooming thorns or dogwoods will be very suitable, 

 but not scarlet ones, unless in the close neighborhood of 

 the garden, and double-blossomed ones on no account. 

 Shrubs will be wholly improper on the grass, except groups 

 where they will almost adjoin a plantation. 



Where bushes exist in a park, they should on no account 

 be trimmed at the base, which would make them look too 

 much like trees; but their branches should be allowed to 

 spread freely down to the ground, that the eye, in glancing 

 over a series of glades, may have to travel round the bushes, 

 and that thus a more varied and inviting range of views may 

 be offered from different points. Bushes are sometimes very 

 useful also when sparingly scattered about groups of trees, 

 in carrying their outlines better to the ground and softening 

 away everything like abruptness or want of pliancy. 



The kinds of ornamental trees that are most admissible into 

 private parks in America are the elm, maples, chestnut, and 

 all kinds of oaks. In the middle states poplars are some- 

 times quite in place. Where evergreens are native they may 

 also be freely used, especially pines and spruces. 



To form and plant a park effectively requires almost greater 

 care and attention than designing a garden, inasmuch as the 

 trees used are of a grander character than the plants employed 



