64 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATIONS. 
Conducted by 
Frances Copley Seavey. 
Leavi! the World a pleasanter place than yon found it. 
THE NECESSITY FOR IMPROVING HOME GROUNDS. 
Before any work can be taken hold of in earnest, 
in a way that insures success, there must be a 
realization of its advisability or necessity. That 
the spirit shall be willing is of vital importance in 
the accomplishment of most undertakings. But 
argument to prove the necessity for decorative 
planting around dwellings would seem superfluous — 
to say nothing of proof of the necessity for a wider 
knowledge of what constitutes good planting. On 
every side the eyes are offended by door yards 
littered with all manner of unsightly if not actually 
offensive objects, as well as by 
barren door yards where lile goes 
on in full view of an entire neigh- 
borhood to the direct result of a 
dulled sense of modesty in chil- 
dren and youth, and a general 
and pitiful hardening in both 
youth and adults of a sense of 
what home life should be. Such 
homes are not home-like, and 
without that subtle quality, ihere 
is no home — nothing but a place 
to stay. 
In the light of these undeni- 
able facts, restricted as their evi- 
dence is to no particular quarter 
but cropping out in one form 
or another in expected and in un- 
expected places, one questions if 
there is a more tangibly necessary 
work to be found than bettering 
the every day surroundings of the people. Indeed, 
it seems reasonable to conclude that the smaller the 
grounds and the means, the greater the need for 
thought and care in designing exterior decora- 
tions. 
Every door yard may be made to yield results 
that an artist might choose as the subject for a 
painting, yet how infrequently is there any evidence 
of design, of purpose, in the arrangement of the 
trees and shrubs around dwellings. The meagre, 
unsatisfactory and meaningless results often noted 
where planting has been attempted is in a measure 
indicated by Fig i in the April notes of this de- 
partment. 
Inside of homes it is different. Most housewives 
know, for instance, that a fireplace is the natural. 
central idea of a house or of a room, and that other 
things should be arranged in relation to it; that 
walls, floors and ceilings bear a certain relation to 
each other and that, in consequence, carpets should 
be darker than walls and ceilings lighter than either 
if a restful balance is to be preserved, etc., etc. 
The household goods are distributed with a very 
definite knowledge of what is desirable, and there 
is a good sound reason for the placing of every 
article. 
No sooner, however, is the outside of the door 
reached when reasons, if not reason, take flight. 
It must be so, for plants of all kinds and sizes are 
scattered about as though dropped by chance. The 
result being, that after a few years good views are 
obliterated and unsightly spots exposed by well 
grown but badly placed plants. 
There are certain parts of the home grounds 
that should be sheltered from public view. It is 
both seemly and convenient for the residents to 
have the partial shelter and seclusion that carefully 
planned planting alone can satisfactorily furnish; 
and it is equally agreeable to neighbors and to the 
passing public to have certain parts of the grounds 
so screened. 
It is quite feasible to so group shrubbery that 
unpleasant views shall be shut off from one’s own 
or from neighboring windows; to throw out a pretty, 
protecting, skirmish line of shrubs along the exposed 
side of a walk or path to outbuildings; or to make 
a division of growing greenery between the front 
and the rear parts of the garden — a division that 
melts into the ornamental on one side and into the 
practical on the other. In short the garment of 
verdure that we speak of as ornamental planting 
EFFECTIVE MASSED FOEIAGE. 
