COMFORT IN THE GARDEN 



ancestors were thoughtful enough to plant them for us, we 

 Americans are not given to planting trees for oiu-selves, ex- 

 cept Norway maples and Carolina poplars for street trees — 

 and these in such positions that the telephone companies are 

 certain to chop oflf their heads. Perhaps, we lack the neces- 

 sary faith and patience to plant for posterity. Besides, pos- 

 terity may live abroad or choose some other dweUing-place — 

 so what's the use ? Yet there are beautiful trees — ^beech and 

 Oriental plane, linden and horse-chestnut, pin-oaks and white 

 oaks, and the friendly sugar-maples. 



If the contractors, in their march through the Georgia of 

 newly captured territory, could be persuaded to leave only 

 the trees they might leave with no possible hurt to their pockets, 

 many a suburban garden would be infinitely the richer for a 

 stately oak or beech. But the majority of folk in small sub- 

 urban places have not sufficient courage or vision to plant 

 for more than twenty-five years ahead — ^possibly by that time 

 the suburbanite hopes to have his country estate. Doubtless, 

 the most satisfying trees for a suburban gardener's planting 

 are fruit-trees. These, even from their infancy, are charming, 

 and though he may never have the pleasure of seeing them 

 through maturity, he has the pleasure of watching for flower 

 and fruit every year. One of the prettiest of garden bound- 

 aries is a dry stone wall with apple-trees looking over it: and 

 if a walk be next the wall, with a three-foot flower space 

 between, it will be just shaded enough to be pleasant, and 

 the flowers will have a charming background. 



Grape-arbor and orchard were an essential part of the 

 older gardens — and a very lovely part. Our grandmothers' 

 contentment with the lack of verandas with which every sort 

 of a modern country house is abundantly suppUed, is explained 

 by the arbors and summer-houses which their gardens were 



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