28 Hints on Landscape Gardening 



be dug and sown with blackthorn or acacia seed, 

 which even in poor ground, in a few years makes 

 an impenetrable mass. Next I should set a plan- 

 tation of firs, mixed with a few deciduous leafed 

 trees and bushes, so as to secure variety of color 

 in summer. For the portions that are to be kept 

 lower we must in our climate take juniper, yew, 

 and medium-sized pine trees, and perhaps also 

 the ordinary spruce and white fir, both of which 

 may easily be kept low by trimming. Along this 

 plantation on the boundary, sometimes broad, 

 sometimes narrow, but hardly ever more than 

 three Ruthen (three rods = thirty-six feet), should 

 run irregularly a grass road thirty-six feet wide. 

 On the side toward the interior of the park should 

 begin the mixed plantation for forming a screen 

 for the general view. Here deciduous leafed trees 

 should predominate and in summer hide the too 

 monotonous evergreen foliage which should be 

 left conspicuous only where it is desirable. It is 

 surprising how such an arrangement enlivens a 

 park even in melancholy winters, and how the 

 lawn or grass path even amid snow and ice, where 

 everything else is bare, makes the most charming 

 walk. The evergreen foreground, which covers 

 the boundaries both winter and summer and bor- 

 ders the grass path, gives color to the whole re- 

 gion, thus supplying a quality much desired in 

 winter days; [although a well-grouped and de- 

 signed park should, during all seasons of the year, 

 even without color satisfy our sense of beauty, 

 especially in winter, when all ordinary decora- 



