A Mass ui^ YouN.-, livLkGRi tss at Wuwiu;a\ks 



INDELIBLE GARDENING. 



PLANT EVERGREENS FOR HEALTH AS WELL AS FOR BEAUTY. 



PEOPLE who visit the Adirondacks and other 

 forest fastnesses for pleasure, rest or health 

 are never better pleased than when they can 

 camp near a mass of beautiful and aromatic 

 balsam trees. This is not only because the 

 handsome, perfectly straight, spire-topped trees load the 

 atmosphere with a pleasant odor, but because the resin- 

 ous odor has a well-founded reputation for healthfulness. 

 Indeed, it is now held by some of our best physicians that 

 the balsam-fir contributes much ozone to the atmosphere. 

 So you will find that health-seekers in the woods will 

 pass pines, hemlocks and spruces in order to take up their 

 abode among balsams. Not content with enjoying the 

 odor of the trees during vacation-time, every visitor to 

 the woods is sure to prepare and carry home for future 

 enjoyment a pillow filled with balsam foliage and tender 

 bark. Such pillows are for a long time deliciously fra- 

 grant, and are supposed to give out much of the regular 

 health-giving property of a balsam forest. 



Now, if the balsam-fir is such a beautiful, healthful and 

 generally well appreciated tree, why not plant it oftener 



about our homes ? West of the editor's residence, in the 

 line of the prevailing winds, he three years ago planted, 

 as one part of a large mass of evergreens, half a dozen 

 thrifty young trees of this species of fir. They have 

 grown rapidly, as the tree always does in ornamental 

 planting if it receives anything like fair treatment, and 

 are now about the height of a man, nearly four feet 

 through at the base, and bushy and vigorous throughout. 

 There is not a more attractive conifer on the grounds to- 

 day than this balsam-fir ; its delightful, deep green hue is 

 softened and lighted by the silvery lining of the leaves, 

 and its odor, here as elsewhere, is enjoyable, healthful 

 and abiding. In years to come we expect to derive much 

 pleasure from these trees, and we urge others to plant 

 them near their homes. 



Ah, yes ! We expected it — that old chestnut about 

 this tree's unfitness for ornamental planting because, in 

 time, it becomes rare or thin in foliage near the ground. 

 This objection is unjust and insufficient. There is not 

 among evergreens, any more than among people, a single 

 subject that retains the full and peculiar beauty of youth 



