NEIGHBORING IMPROVEMENTS. G7 
nolias, catalpas, paulonia, mulberries, and ailanthus, with some 
evergreens of rounded forms, will make an interesting collection. 
We have here named a dozen places, with each a specialty. 
Now, it is to be clearly understood that the nature of the locality, 
the form of the ground, the peculiarities of the soil, and the archi- 
tecture of the house, are all to be taken into consideration before 
deciding what species of planting to make the specialty of any one 
home. It would be ridiculous to plant weeping willows on a dry, 
bald site, or gloomy balsam firs on a sunny slope, or a collection of 
spiry evergreens alone on a level lawn, or in juxtaposition with 
masses of round-headed trees, like maples and horse-chestnuts. 
All the surrounding circumstances must govern the choice ; and 
neighbors should consult together with competent advisers, as far 
as practicable, before determining what each will plant, so as to 
make contiguous grounds harmonize, as well as add to the variety 
of each other’s grounds. 
To be repeating the same round of common favorite trees in 
one place after another, on a fine suburban street, is to lose much 
of the varied beauty which would result from each planter making 
thorough work in some one specialty of arboriculture. To employ 
an artist in landscape gardening to design all the places that adjoin 
each other, with reference to a distinctive characteristic for each, 
and a happy blending of the beauty of all, would, of course, be the 
most certain way to secure satisfactory results. It will be found, as 
we grow more intelligent in such matters, that it is quite as essen- 
tial to the beauty of our home-grounds to commit their general 
arrangement to professional artists, and to be as absolutely re- 
stricted to their plans, as it has been in the management of ceme- 
teries. So long as each lot-owner can plant and form his lot to 
suit himself alone, whatever his taste may be, such grounds will be 
but a medley of deformities. To insure a high order of beauty in 
neighboring improvements, all planting must be done under some 
one competent direction. The result of this is seen in our beauti- 
ful modern cemeteries. A similar subordination of individual fan- 
cies to a general plan, in a community of neighboring grounds, 
may develop like results. 
