70 THE FAEM. 



them are embellished with flowers, and many of them, too, at a season 

 when our flowers have lost their loveliest charms, that they have a dou- 

 ble claim on our regard ; some of them are also so hardy, as to brave our 

 severest winters, and bloom even amid our more chilling days. Summer's 

 loveliest gem^ — the virgin rose — belongs also to this tribe of plants ; the 

 myrtle, with its delicate petals ; the clematis, with its climbing tendrils 

 and odoriferous sweets; the lilac, with its ornamental coronals, and nu- 

 merous other favorites of Flora, exhibit claims to our admiration. 



The distinction, therefore, between flowers and shrubs is merely that 

 the former are of the herbaceous kind, that is, their stalks are generally 

 soft and succulent, and require, comparatively, but little watering, them- 

 selves imbibing a considerable share of moisture from the atmosphere ; 

 while the latter are harder and firmer in the stalks, approaching nearer to 

 the nature of trees, except in having shorter stems and more bushy heads. 



Shrubs are all perennials, and are divided into two kinds, deciduous 

 and evergreens ; the former lose their leaves in the winter, and do not 

 regain them till the following spring ; the latter only shed them when 

 new leaves are ready to appear. 



Deciduous shrubs are divided into flowering and ornamental kinds. 

 They grow from one to ten or twelve feet high ; and some sorts, in 

 favorable situations, attain a much greater height : the creeper kinds, if 

 properly trained, will reach to fifty or even a hundred feet. They may 

 be raised from seeds, sown in the spring months, and planted out in the 

 autumn ; and propagated by suckers, cuttings, or layers. They require 

 mostly a good rich loamy soil ; and many of the flowering and more 

 tender kinds should be protected in a greenhouse from the inclemency 

 of the wintry season. 



The evergreen kinds of shrubs are also divided into flowering and 

 ornamental ; and are, like the deciduous, raised principally from seed, 

 and propagated by slips, cuttings, suckers, and layers. They attain a 

 similar height : and the parasitical kinds, as they are termed from living 

 principally on the nourishment they derive from clinging to trees, as 

 the ivy tribe, grow as high as the creepers among the deciduous shrubs. 

 They will thrive in almost any kind of soil, and being particularly 

 hardy, vegetate amid the severity of winter as in the genial -warmth of 

 summer ; but the American evergreens, of which we have now many 

 elegant flowering varieties, thrive only in peat or boggy earth. 



When shrubs are planted for hedges, they, in their first growth, 

 should be timely trimmed and trained, and kept free from weeds, the 

 sides cut even, and the tops sparingly touched, till nearly at the requir- 

 ed height, except that the weak and runaway tops should be nearly 

 leveled with the rest, that the whole may advance with regularity. 



The beds and borders of a flower-garden should, in no part of them, 

 be broader than the cultivator can reach to from each side, without 

 treading on the beds ; the shape and number of them must be deter- 

 mined by the size of the grounds and taste of the person laying out the 

 garden ; only, as a sort of general rule, do not allow less than three 

 times as much grass-plot as flower-bed, exclusive of the gravel-walks, 

 which ought not to be very numerous. 



Although the grandest display is produced by a general flower-g.xr- 



