138 OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES. 



Rhododendron in a few shaded swamp-lands where it 

 finds its habitat in New England, is no indication of 

 what may be done with it under fairer conditions of 

 growth. 



And this mention of the laurel family (I like that 

 old popular naming of these shrubs) reminds me of 

 the screens and coppices which greet the eye so often 

 in English gardens and in English landscape. It is 

 quite possible that with our climate, we can never 

 equal their variety. The Bay, the Spanish laurel, the 

 Laurestina, will very likely be fastidious in adjusting 

 themselves to our winters. But with our narrow- 

 leaved laurel, our Latifolia, our Rhododendrons, we 

 can pile up a wealth of glossy green against the 

 northern sides of our gardens, which even the best 

 British farmers might envy. Add to these our 

 spruces (hemlock and others), our white pine (Stro- 

 bus), for background, and we have nothing to covet. 



But if we have nothing to covet, we have very 

 much to learn in the adjustment of our leafy screens. 

 Over and over I observe some ambitious gentleman 

 (at the hands of his gardener) attempting to establish 

 a protective coppice, and after careful and expensive 

 preparation of the ground (there is nothing lacking 

 on that score), placing his rare evergreens where they 

 will be presently overgrown and lost, or putting out 

 his Rhododendrons where they will have no room for 



