HOW TO MAKE A COTINTET PLACE. 449 



satisfaction will be the result; because one may not 

 only make up their own mind by studying their groups 

 of poles, for weeks or months, even, but they can also 

 have the advantage of criticism from intelKgent visitors, 

 and if the poles are wrong it is much easier to remove 

 them than the trees. 



If it were our object to make the most thorough place 

 with the greatest expedition and fewest mistakes, we 

 should plant every group, mass, and single specimen in 

 poles, and allow them to remain when the trees were 

 both in and out of leaf, in. order to be quite certain 

 that the planting worked equally well in all seasons, 

 and also to study and be quite sure we were right in 

 the harmony and selection we made of varieties for 

 forming groups and masses. 



Although the process may seem slow and tedious to 

 new beginners, yet we are quite sure a place thus 

 treated will, at the end of four or five years, be far more 

 advanced and much more judiciously and successfully 

 planted than by the more ordinary and hasty method. 

 In the first place, there will be no mistakes — no un- 

 doing — on the contrary, the planting of the place is the 

 making of the border : and in the second place, the trees 

 will be better specimens, because we may at our leisure 

 select from our border the best plants, and have them 

 much better planted, inasmuch as when the spot for the 

 tree is selected, the hole may be dug months, if neces- 

 sary, before used — which, for spring planting, is most 

 advantageous, by submitting the soil to the action of the 

 frost. Whereas in the usual method, we go to a nursery 

 and order a certain quantity of plants, and when they 

 arrive, possibly on a disagreeable, windy day, we set 

 about in the greatest hurry to dig holes and plant our 

 trees, without in the least knowing the efiects they are 

 to make or mar when fully grown; 



It is this careless method which produces so much 

 bad planting and ruins so many country places. How 

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