Practical Directions 287 



more elegant. Where there is a small raised bank, however, 

 by the margin of a stream, oaks, beeches, sycamores, weeping 

 birches, and thorns will form good accompaniments, though 

 almost any other tree will grow in such a position. 



Within the smoky precincts of large towns, the accumula- 

 tion of soot on the leaves of plants keeps them sickly and, 

 in conjunction with other influences, actually destroys many 

 of them. Without doubting the potency of town gases or 

 more substantial deposits, I am inclined to attribute some of 

 the bad health common in town plants to the miserable earth 

 in which they are often grown, and believe that were the soil 

 renewed and freshened occasionally by additional deposits, 

 the ground being duly drained and prepared in the first 

 instance, many of our public gardens in towns would present 

 a different aspect. 



Some plants, however, unquestionably manage to endure 

 the air of large towns better than others. Elms, planes, 

 beeches, birches, poplars, horse chestnuts, mountain ash, 

 lilacs, privet, Japanese quince are a few of these. Planes 

 may be particularly mentioned as enduring the very worst 

 of town atmospheres in the heart of London, and growing as 

 healthily there as if they were in the open country. To 

 enumerate more would demand an amount of space which 

 the design of the book will not justify me in affording. Any 

 one accustomed to walk through extensive towns might soon, 

 by a Httle observation, extend and perfect this list, and with 

 an eye also to their own locality. The principal aim in this 

 and all other matters has chiefly been to put amateurs on the 

 right track, and not to exhaust the subject which is too ample 

 to be fully discussed in so short an essay, 



14. Program of Work. — It may be well just to indicate, 

 cursorily, the order in which the different operations involved 

 in laying out a garden should be performed, as some incon- 



