SHRUBBERIES AND FLOWER-GARDENS. CHAP. 



in its form/ hut the beauty of its young branches, its 

 luxuriant leaves/and, above all, its delicate and abundant 

 flowers, make it one of the most desirable and esteemed 

 shrubs either for the shrubbery, border, or parterre j arid 

 the facility of procuring and cultivating it is an ad- 

 ditional recommendation. Graft on the common acacia, 

 in just the same manner that you graft apples or pears 

 (see par. 209, for tongue-grafting), and, if you make any 

 difference at all, graft nearer to the ground than is there 

 recommended ; and draw the earth up with a hoe about 

 the clay that you wrap round the grafted plant, and this 

 will keep up a moistness that renders the operation 

 more surely successful. The plants will flower the first 

 year, but, unless they are in a very sheltered situation, 

 they should have stakes driven in alongside of them, and 

 should be tied to these, for they are exceedingly brittle, 

 and would be blown to pieces by one high wind, without 

 this precaution. The flowers come on the same year's 

 wood, therefore keep your plants shortened every year, 

 if you wish them to flower low down j but, if you have 

 them on lawns, or buried at all in the shrubbery, let 

 them have their way, only now-and-then cutting out dead 

 wood or broken limbs. It is perfectly hardy, and any 

 soil almost suits it, though, like most other things, it 

 flourishes most in the finest soil. The SMOOTH-TREE 

 ACACIA. .Lat. Mimosa Julibrissin Fr. Acatie arbr e desoie, is 

 a green-house shrub. It is not ranked by the botanists 

 with the preceding plant, but I put them together as 

 acacias, meaning to have done with that genus of plants 

 when I have finished this paragraph. This plant is a 

 native of the Levant, where it becomes a tree of thirty 

 feet high, blows a rose-coloured flower in August. It is 



