Practical Directions 273 



7. Present vs. Future Effects. — Planting may be under- 

 taken with reference solely to the ultimate effects it will 

 produce, or it can be made to embrace a more immediate and 

 present result. The former plan is of course somewhat the 

 easiest as far as labor is concerned, and is the least expensive 

 when the plants have to be bought. But a garden that is 

 planted only with the smallest nursery things will be exceed- 

 ingly tame and uninteresting for several years, and it will 

 require the planter to have a very good knowledge of each 

 individual variety with respect to its natural or usual height 

 and habit to make the final picture at all a successful one. 



In many neighborhoods where large areas have been 

 planted for public or prospective ends, the yearly thinnings 

 from such plantations will be obtainable on comparatively 

 moderate terms, and these will be very useful in giving an 

 appearance of age and variety to a garden. As the private 

 gardens are generally in need of thinning, a planter may 

 sometimes pick up a number of effective specimens among 

 his friends or in the way of exchange for other things. And 

 when these resources fail or money is not so much consid- 

 ered most good nurserymen now grow plants in borders, 

 and transplant them occasionally for the express purpose of 

 supplying larger specimens that are well rooted and can be 

 safely removed with balls of earth to diversify and give an 

 air of greater finish to newly formed gardens. Such trees 

 and shrubs can be bought very reasonably in large quanti- 

 ties, and their free use is always to be recommended. 



Notwithstanding the extreme desirableness of attending to 

 the present appearance of plantations, and putting in a few 

 plants at intervals to make an immediate show and to banish 

 the monotonous dulness unavoidable where only the youngest 

 class is employed, the great aim of the planter should be for 

 future effect, and where the bulk of the plants are healthy 



