128 OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES. 



After omy a few years, these gross feeders have seized 

 upon all the available plant-food within reach, and 

 with the great lusty boughs of the maples waving 

 over his cherished parterres, the proprietor is amazed 

 at the shrinkage of his flower-growth. It should be 

 fairly understood that about a densely shaded door- 

 step, the conditions of vigorous and healthful flower- 

 growth can never be maintained. 



But far worse, and more to be deprecated than a 

 starvation of the flowers in the immediate neighbor- 

 hood of a country house, is the starvation of the turf; 

 yet in many of the old established village yards, and 

 about many suburban homes where the fancy for 

 dense overhanging shade has had full sway, even the 

 grasses maintain a doubtful livelihood, and their place 

 is taken by the wild mosses. It may be laid down, I 

 think, as a safe rule, and of universal application in 

 our Northern latitudes, that wherever shade immedi- 

 ately contiguous to the house is too dense for the vig- 

 orous growth of the ordinary lawn grasses, it is too 

 dense for proper conditions of health ; and I would 

 recommend to the invalid tenants of such a house in 

 place of nostrums the axe. 



Of course, we can hardly venture to expose our 

 whole frontage to the sun, in the generous way in 

 which the British country liver is wont to do ; but 

 sunshine on the roof should, I think, be religiously 



