CHAPTER X 

 CONIFERS 



AMONG ornamental trees and shrubs, the conifers must be awarded 

 a leading place. Being practically all evergreen, they have a great 

 advantage over deciduous trees and shrubs in that their decorative 

 effects are permanent. This in itself is much, but is not every- 

 thing, for there are many keen gardeners who prefer the changing 

 effects the spring, summer and autumn of the deciduous flower- 

 ing shrubs ; yet even they will willingly admit that the best and 

 most complete effects are obtained from a combination of both. 



But permanency of effect is not the only recommendation of the 

 conifer when the right thing is planted in the right place. Its 

 perfect form, its trim beauty, its elegant growths, its massive yet 

 light appearance, its majestic and stately proportions as it develops, 

 stamp it at once as the aristocrat of the garden and the pride of the 

 greensward. 



There are so many conifers extant that we must not attempt to 

 give an exhaustive list, and can only concern ourselves chiefly with 

 species, and secondarily with a few of the more prominent varieties, 

 altogether omitting such varieties as the Cedar of Lebanon, the 

 lordly Sequoia or Wellingtonia, and the spreading Picea Nord- 

 manniana, etc., as being scarcely market trees in our particular 

 sense. 



Nurserymen who may have none but a shallow dry soil will be 

 well advised to have little to do with coniferse beyond that stage at 

 which they can be sold for window-box adornment, for though the 

 Scotch fir and other pines (forest and not ornamental trees) will 

 thrive on shallow stony soils, the really ornamental conifers we have 

 in mind need something better, failing which they shed their lower 

 foliage and are no longer ornamental. Abies, cupressus, thujas, yews 

 and others all have a considerable root system and should be planted 

 in soil which has at least a medium depth. 



The demand for young conifers from 2 feet to 4 feet in height is 

 really very great, and there is every probability of its becoming 

 even greater. Their cultivation up to that size is by no means 



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