66 
NEIGHBORING IMPROVEMENTS. 
among a thousand beauties he can hardly fail to make an in- 
teresting collection. 
H. may have a predilection for spruces, hemlocks, and 
spiry-top trees, and make the evergreens of those forms, and the 
deciduous trees that harmonize with them, his specialty.* But 
care must be used not to render the place gloomy with their too 
great abundance. 
I. will not have any species in particular, but loves those 
trees, of whatever species, which spread low and broadly, but clear 
above the lawn ; like the apple-tree, the mulberry, the horse-chest- 
nut, the catalpas and paulonias, the white oak, the beech, and some 
varieties of the thorn. ' 
J. admires the classic formalities of the old French style of 
gardening, and prefers trees and shrubs that will bear clipping 
well, and grow naturally or artificially into symmetric and for- 
mal shapes ; with straight walks and architectural decorations. 
In close neighborhoods, and on well-improved streets, architectural 
gardening is the most elegant of all, but requires much money 
for constructions, which, if not thorough and tastefully complete, 
were better not attempted. 
K. wishes a place full of graceful forms, and will use those 
trees which will best carry out his idea. His walks must be ser- 
pentine j his trees weeping varieties, both deciduous and evergreen, 
of which the variety in form and character is such as to enable 
him to make a most picturesque as well as graceful collection. 
L. has a special admiration for trees of exotic or tropical ap- 
pearance, and if his soil is deeply drained f rich^ a?id wari7t^ the mag- 
* Spiry-topped evergreens, like the balsam fir or Norway spruce, are rather impracticable to 
make entire plantations of on any place. Their forms are too monotonous, and their shadows too 
meagre, to be used with the same careless profusion near a dwelling that we may employ broadly- 
overhanging trees, like the elms, oaks, pines, and maples. Such evergreens are planted quite too 
much already ; many fine places having been rendered most gloomy by their great abundance. A 
specialty of this kind would, therefore, be “ stale and unprofitable,” unless made with great skill. 
t By deeply-drained, we do not mean the draining of a foot below the surface, but at least four 
feet, so that the large roots of trees will be invited to penetrate into the substratum, which is never 
cold to the freezing point, and from which the roots of trees form conductors to the branches 
above, and thus serve to modify the rigors of the upper air by the warmth of the earth below the 
frost. If one will but think of the difference in winters’ coldest days, between riding all day with 
warm blocks to the feet, or without them, he can appreciate the argument for inviting trees to root 
deeply in the earth’s warm substratum. 
