INTRODUCTION. 33 



swallows and other birds of passage ; to such, 

 the gaiety of the autumnal shrubbery is of 

 most importance. It now remains to say, 

 how the last expiring glow of beauty may be 

 thrown over the pleasure-ground. 



In addition to the trees and shrubs, which 

 will be noticed in this work as flowering the 

 latest, aid should be borrowed from such 

 autumnal flowers as continue gay until the 

 approach of winter. The towering hollyhock, 

 when half concealed and half seen through 

 the shrubs and evergreens, is one of the 

 boldest enliveners of the plantation at this 

 season. This plant yields to none in beauty 

 of form, majesty of carriage, or gaiety of 

 colour ; its hues proceed through all the 

 tints of crimson, from the palest rose to the 

 deepest purple ; and from the purest white 

 through all the shades of yellow, orange, and 

 iron-brown. The tall sunflower should also 

 figure in the back-ground ; and the middle 

 space may be allotted to the richly-varied 

 dalea of the western world. The foreground 

 is to be rendered splendid by large plots of 

 the asters of China, the general tints of 

 which, inclining to blue or purple, contrast 

 well with the more gaudy colours of the 

 African marigold, or the nasturtium of Peru, 

 which latter should be suffered to climb the 



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