536 



SUCCESSFUL FARMING 



other reason. Against unattractive objects or views noted in the prelim- 

 inary survey should of course be arranged a heavy plantation. It may take 

 on a little different character and contain many trees, especially the smaller 

 growing kinds, as well as evergreens and closely planted shrubs. Do not 

 forget the softening influence of clinging vines in helping to harmonize 

 houses and landscape and to afford privacy to porches and service buildings. 

 Shade trees do not clothe the earth and in this dissertation are left to the 

 last for the reason that shrubbery and vines and grass are all-important 

 in home ornamentation; shade trees are not so often forgotten or so badly 

 used by the amateur planter. Arrange them in groups, not rows, of differ- 

 ent species, and for lawn specimens, endeavor to preserve the lower limbs. 

 Street and roadside trees are of a different ideal, 



Hyacinth Bed. 1 



Use of Flowers. — The use of flowers and flower beds in home orna- 

 mentation is not to be discouraged, although it harbors much danger in 

 chances of introducing colors and material difficult to place and to har- 

 monize with most natural landscape. If the advice be confined to that 

 type of flowers called " old-fashioned" hardy plants, the matter is simpli- 

 fied. They add charm to most shrubberies and lawns when planted along 

 in front of the shrub beds, arranged in and out among the shrubs. The 

 other class of flowers known as "bedding plants," which includes gera- 

 niums, cannas, coleus, salvia and so forth, is more difficult to blend, more 

 foreign to simple places and more predominant in its color note. Such 

 bedding can be best used directly against the house, but never in beds, 

 stars, crescents and bologna sausage shapes, in the middle of the lawn, 



1 Courtesy of The Countryside Magazine, New York City. 



