Introduction. 



XXXI. 



careful observer the classes of trees and plants that will best flourish and best 

 adorn . 



Happily, our newer gardens are no longer peppered over with specimen 

 conifers. Much as we honour those heads of our great nursery firms and others, 

 whose enterprise and practical encouragement of botanical explorers has so greatly 

 increased the number of coniferous trees that we may now choose from, the earlier 



HEDGES ssssi 



STONE FL7\CCING ^^,>^^ 

 FLOWEf^ BED5 ' - 



FIG. XXI. — PL.4N OF GARDEN AT THURSLEV DESIGNED BY MR. E. WHITE. 



mistakes in planting have in many cases been disastrous to gardens. About fifty 

 years ago, when they were being raised and distributed, and horticultural taste 

 was at a low ebb, a kind of fashion arose for planting conifers. It mattered not 

 that they took no place in garden design, and that those who planted had no idea 

 what they would be like when full grown ; the object was merely to have one each 

 of as many kinds as possible. If the intention had been simply to make a collection 

 from the botanical point of view there would be nothing to criticise ; but they were 



