HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE. 
443 
especially on the exposed part towards the public road, 
were then trenched over twenty to fifty feet broad, 
heavily composted and planted with a judicious mixture 
of evergreens and ornamental trees. The border, how- 
ever, for many years, until the trees were fifteen to 
twenty feet high, and in many cases touched each other, 
was annually enriched and planted in potatoes, the crop 
being some remuneration for the expense. 
The next step after deciding upon the situation of the 
house, was to form the avenues and plant them ; the one 
from the Boston entrance, with alternating Pinus excelsa, 
and Magnolia tripetala at one end, and with large mas- 
ses of rhododendrons, Kalmia latifolia, Mahonias, and 
other rare evergreen shrubs, as a frontage to a back ground 
of Norway spruces at the other ; until the road reaches 
the Italian garden, with a view of the lake on one side, 
and the house and lawn on the other, when the avenue 
effect of the planting ceases — and groups, masses, and 
single specimens, and the ornamental arrangement, 
shown in the view, commences. 
The other avenue from the Natick entrance is plant- 
ed with rows of white pine and larch, now, perhaps, 
twenty to twenty-five feet high, and being all fine 
trees, the effect is already very marked. 
The next step was to plant the lawn of about eight 
acres with the best specimens selected from the nurseries 
or border plantations. This has been most cleverly and 
successfully done, much of it in the winter with frozen 
balls and with the most ornamental and choicest trees ; in 
some cases large specimens twenty to thirty feet high 
were brought twenty miles, but even after the clumps, 
masses, and single specimens on the lawn were arranged 
and planted, it was still annually enriched and cultivated, 
and the ground around each tree and mass of trees is, 
even to this day, kept clean to a circle following the 
drip of the branches. 
The house, a front or entrance view of which is given 
