April 29, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



195 



once more the use of a trellis, and the grass was mown and 

 raked clean of the last year's rowan. 



Fierce war was made upon the Burdocks and Mint and 

 Horse-radish that had squatted everywhere on the land ; load 

 after load of the accumulated rubbish of years was buried 

 under the corduroy road, and hidden from view with gravel ; 

 the Pear-trees we carefully pruned and tied up, and the old 

 Grape-trellis stiffened with new posts and lattices. 



When all this was done, and it was no brief job, the place 

 took on a civilized air truly surprising, but, like the boy's wash- 

 ing his face, which cost his father a thousand dollars, the felling 

 of the first ragged old tree was an entering wedge of improve- 

 ments that find no end. 



The clearing up revealed unsuspected beauties and possi- 

 bilities in the old place, and at the end of it we had taken an 

 account of stock, and were aware that we had become owners 

 of a treasure-house of enjoyments. But the charms and 

 wealth of that old garden are "another story " which remains 

 to be told later. 



While all this spring and fall cleaning was going on, the 

 heavy labor of grading was in progress. Teams and men 

 were coming and going, heavy scrapers were plowing part of 

 the little knoll down into the valley, and loads of gravel were 

 being dumped to bring the slopes into proper form, the sur- 

 face soil having been first removed to cover the future lawn. 

 Week by week the work went on, till the very landscape changed 

 its contours, as the removal of the crown of the knoll threw 

 open to view, from the sidewalk, the fine sketch of green 

 meadow and blue stream, once hidden from view by its cone. 



When our much-interested critics found that we had chosen 

 the site for our dwelling in an unexpected part of the grounds, 

 their murmurs again reached our ears. 



"Why in the world don't the doctor build up on top of the 

 hill, where he can see everything, and be among neighbors?" 

 sang half the chorus. 



"If I had a lot of big trees like those Elums I'd get the 

 good of 'em, and put my new house on the old cellar," echoed 

 the antiphonal. 



" Never can make anything better 'n a Shumack-bush grow 

 in that gravel-pit," shouted they all together. 



"Well, perhaps he knows what he's about," would inter- 

 .pose some friendly voice ; " but it wouldn't be my way, any- 

 how. He'll find out, come to plantin', that he's got to have 

 soil, even for a door-yard." 



When it came to building the foundations, their distance from 

 the highway seemed inordinate to most of these critics, but 

 now and then we were reproached by the more ambitious for 

 not leaving front enough. In fine, we came to be in full sym- 

 pathy with the Old Man and His Ass of the fable ; but being 

 luckier than he in having a mind of our own, we did not end 

 by pitching house and all into the water, as we might have 

 been tempted to do from the multitude of counselors, in 

 which, in spite of Solomon, there is not always wisdom. 



Our firm conviction was that the hill, in spite of the com- 

 manding view toward the north, was too bleak and exposed a 

 position to be pleasant for an all-the-year-round home ; it was 

 also too near the neighbors' lines, and too remote from or- 

 chard and garden. 



On the other hand, tempting as the great Elms certainly were 

 on a hot summer day, the lot at that end of the farm was quite 

 too narrow for a house and stable such as we required. The 

 knoll, though limited in area, gave us plenty of elbow-room, 

 and from its elevation we overlooked the grassy swale on one 

 side, with the hill for a background, and northward could view 

 the ever-changing tints of the meadow, behind the gardens 

 and the fruit-trees. Experience has confirmed the wisdom of 

 our choice, and, in justice to our advisers, I will say that they 

 now handsomely admit that, though they "didn't think much 

 of the doctor's ch'ice, to begin with," they are now convinced 

 that "he has got about the likeliest lot on the street." 



Since publishing the first of these papers I have received 

 various inquiries with regard to some of our experiments, 

 which, perhaps, it would be well to begin to answer here, be- 

 fore going farther. One of the questions, which concerns the 

 Willows, asks whether we are to make a hedge of them or al- 

 low them to grow up into trees. "If you allow the Willow- 

 trees to grow up," asks my correspondent, "won't they shut 

 off all your views ; and if you don't allow them to, won't the 

 labor and trouble of cutting them back every year be serious ? " 



In reply to this I would say that we do mean to let them 

 grow into trees at their own sweet will, at least for the present. 

 The knoll is so high, and the slope of the ground, from the foot 

 of it to the edge of the place, so decided, that our veranda-floor 

 is some twenty-five feet above the level where the Willows are 

 set, so that they can grow for some years to come without be- 



coming an annoyance. They are also quite a long distance 

 away, as the line runs diagonally between us and the meadow. 

 Should they ever become a serious obstruction, polling once 

 in five years, we think, will keep them where we want them, 

 as from our elevation we can look directly over the top of a 

 very tall old Apple-tree which stands at the foot of the slope 

 near the house, and a Willow in the distance will have to be 

 quite a tree to be really troublesome. A vista cut here and 

 there in the line will really enhance the charm of the prospect, 

 but at present they are not more than fifteen feet high. 



Another inquiry comes with regard to the preparation of the 

 soil on the hill for the Pines. 



Unfortunately, we did nothing in the way of making a bed 

 for them beyond the process I have described. No doubt, 

 they would have fared much better for a little feeding and 

 more of them would have lived, but the hill was very steep 

 and hard to get at, even with a wheelbarrow ; and, besides, 

 we had no soil to spare, for we needed everything we could 

 get for the lawn and did not care to buy any for so doubtful 

 an enterprise. We, therefore, tried our experiment under the 

 sternest conditions. However, those tiny Pilgrim Fathers of 

 the future forest stood the trial like little men. Some of them, 

 it is true, died of consumption, and some of fever; but the 

 survivors are growing tall and stout on their poor pickings 

 and will do us credit yet. 



There is one of them, nicknamed Episcopus, from its birth- 

 place in the church lot, which is a beautiful illustration of that 

 fable called Nature and Education, in " Evenings at Home," 

 a book which was the delight of the childhood of a. previous 

 generation and an infinite bore to the present advanced infant. 

 I spied the poor thing one day hanging by one root to the 

 side of a sand-hill, which was being graded to a smooth slope, 

 and asked the men who were working there to let me have 

 it. Though much ridiculed for its shapeless and unpromis- 

 ing aspect, it was given a comfortable shelf pretty well down 

 on the slope and coaxed to hold its head up by various de- 

 vices. Unused to kind treatment, this wayside waif, which 

 had got used to growing nearly upside down, hung its head 

 and sidled up against the hill, and seemed to find its branches 

 as much in its way as the legs and arms of a guttersnipe in a 

 parlor; but time and training and the neighborhood of Bos- 

 ton have their influence even on a Pine, and that clerical 

 tree is now a very Bishop in erectness and dignity, having 

 been lopped and pruned and tied to stakes till it puts the 

 most symmetrical of the other Pines to shame by the vigor of 

 its development, proving that if anything can "beat Nature" 

 it is Education. 



The consolation of a limited number of trees is that each 

 one acquires an individuality, and their owner gets to know 

 them as a shepherd does his flock. I wish every one could 

 learn the way in which these little growing things take hold of 

 one's interest, and people life in the country. 



The forester of ever so minute a wood has a fund of enjoy- 

 ment on his plantation that no unlimited order to the best of 

 landscape-gardeners can ever give him. It is a fine spiritual 

 exercise to bring the mind into sympathy with inferior organ- 

 isms, and when one has fairly learned to love anything so stub- 

 born and irresponsive as a tree, he has gained a step in.mental 

 development, even beyond that point won by a sympathetic 

 understanding of his brother man. 



However fond one may be of a flower-garden, I doubt if it 

 ever yields quite so sturdy a satisfaction as the culture of trees. 

 It is the difference between bringing up a girl and a boy — one 

 all light, color, sweetness, a thing to be cherished and tenderly 

 sheltered and nurtured ; the other less outwardly winning, more 

 obstinate in development, more independent and manly in 

 habit, but more worth while ; of positive pecuniary value when 

 well grown; and formed, when symmetry and breadth are fully 

 attained, to be of service in sheltering the weak and weary who 

 seek protection in what Mrs. Gamp would call " this wale." 



Hingham, Mass. M. C. Robbins. 



Winter Studies of the Pine Barren Flora of Lake 

 Michigan.— II. 



TN some of the sphagnous bogs, or in the shallow water of 

 *• sloughs on which the Peat Mosses encroach, we shall come 

 on another shrub of the Heath family, Cassandra calyculata. 

 Wherever found it grows in the greatest profusion. It is not 

 quite an evergreen, but its oblong leaves are very persistent, 

 and of a thick texture, giving it its common name, Leather- 

 leaf. They fade to a yellowish or straw-colored hue in the 

 winter, though some are purple or purple-tinged. The nu- 

 merous ascending leaves are closely appressed to the stem at 

 this season. This exposes their scurfy lower surfaces, cov- 



