* 
Price Five Cents, 
$2.00 Per Year, 
Vol. XL. No. 7. ( 
Whole No. 1620. j 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1881. by the Rural New-Yorfeer, In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.! 
month or more and finally drop while still in a 
well-preserved condition. It has proven here 
perfectly hardy. See fig. T5, p. 103. 
Vibnrnum lantanoides is the American Way¬ 
faring-tree, or Hobble-busb, found in cold, moht 
woods from New England to Pennsylvania and 
in the Allegbanies. It is not to be compared 
with the Japan Vibnrnum in anyway, except 
that it bears fiuit of a red color at first, turn¬ 
ing darker as it decays. It is of rather strag¬ 
gling habit naturally, but this is partly over¬ 
come by seasonable pruning. The cymes of 
flowers are broad, flat and possessed of little 
beauty. 
The Guelder Rose (V. Opulus) is also well 
known by the name of High Cranberry Bush 
in its wild state. In this the inner flowers bear 
an acid fruit which has been used a3 a substi¬ 
tute for cranberries—whence the name. It 
loses its fruitfulness under cultivation, all of 
the flowerB becoming sterile. 
Hydrangea paniculata grandiflora— 
the Great-panicled Hydrangea. This shrub has 
pmnhatic merits and emphatic faults: but it 
would be long delayed ? It is the same with 
our children. A naked, treeless country home 
engages not the affections. Beauty invites ap¬ 
proach, contact, association; while ugliness, 
like neglect, decay, danger, drives us away. 
And yet, as between the two country homes 
above alluded to, is the coat of planting and 
raising those trees and shrubs greater lhan the ; 
benefits to be derived from them ? If this 
were so, there would be a valid, a forcible ex¬ 
cuse for tbe naked, cheerless, wintry farm 
homes everywhere to be seen. To show that 
the judicious, economical planting of shrubs 
and trees about the farm house is one of the 
most profitable, beneficent, satisfactory invest¬ 
ments the farmer can make is one of the pur¬ 
poses for which this special number of the 
Rural New-Yoekfr has been written and 
presented to its readers. We have made most 
of tne following notes from our own careful 
experience through many years. For the most 
part they have been derived from experience 
O !*u** wV '’\ Kd*" in a 
valley running north and sout*', are exposed 
to unusual vicissitudes of climate. There is 
rarely a Winter passes during which the thei- 
mometer does not reach 10® below zero ; 
while we rarely escape the latest frosts of 
Spring and the earliest of Fall. 
Shrubs. 
Virurrum plicatum —the Japan Suow- 
ball. There is no one shrub that we cau place 
first. We prize different sbrubs for different 
qualities—some for their beauty of foliage, 
some for their beauty of flower, some because 
they bloom at a season when few others bloom, 
Eomefor many excellent, though few first-class 
qualities. We place the Japan Snow-ball fore¬ 
most among our best hardy shrubs because 
of many excellencies. It has been known in 
this country for upwards of 40 years, aud the 
only reason why it is still scarce is beeause it 
is both hard to propagate and liable to die 
during the first season after transplantation. 
It grows compactly, with an abundance of 
leaves, which are thick, plicate and of a rich, 
dark-green color. ThiB shrub, in fact, would 
be desirable for its foliage alone. Its flowers 
1 (see Rural of Sept. 21, 1878. for engraving), 
'V<A r" ^ X 
They are suited to special wants and require 
special care. The descriptions are necessarily 
brief and imperfect, bo that, unless the intend¬ 
ing purchaser has already a knowledge of the 
plants desired, be is as likely as not to order 
thore which, after several years of patient 
waiting, he finds are not at all suited to pro¬ 
duce the effects which his imagination had 
Wier’s Cut-leaved Silver Maple.—Fig. 61. 
is, nevertheless, worthy a place in every gar¬ 
den. It is perfectly hardy. Indeed we do not 
know of a hardier shrub or one that will thrive 
with less care. It propagates freely from green 
wood, and the branches, which are borne to 
the ground by their weight of Immense ter¬ 
minal panicles of flowers and thereheld in con¬ 
tact during a week or so, will often be found 
to have become well rooted plants. These 
may be separated from the rest of the stem at 
any time, planted in any convenient place, and 
they will bloom the next season. It may be 
mentioned that, though many shrubs fail to 
bloom the season they are transplanted, this 
hydrangea never fails, and the immense size 
of the flower heads often bears an almost lu¬ 
dicrous disproportion to the littleness of the 
plant itself. It is a fierce grower, and one has 
not to wait patiently for seveial years to see it 
in all its glory, A plant 18 inches high has 
borne with us 12 panicles—thyrses properly. 
The flowers begin to bloom in early August 
and continue until frost. When first unfold¬ 
ing they are of a greenish-white color—never 
purely white—which finally, when cold nights 
occur, changes to a faded-ro3e color. These 
flower head, or tbyrses, sometimes measure two 
feet in circumference and U inches in convex 
length—we mean from the base to the apex of 
the cone. We once counted upon six plants 
135 panicles. Their showiness may Be we 
judged by 6nch a display. There are two kinds 
of flowers which make up these masses of 
bloom. The showy ones are about one ineh in 
diameter and the calyx is the only showy 
part, lu the center of this is a little ball the 
THE BEST OF THE 
HARDY SHRUBS AND # TREES 
OF EASY CULTIVATION. 
HOW LITTLE IT WILL COST 
To Beautify the Grounds Abou the 
Country Home, 
Easil)'TrnH3|>luiitc(l Trees and Shrub* 
that Grow In the Meadows 
and TVoods About. 
What Excuse is there for Treeless 
Naked Door-Yards ? 
The Duty which Farmers owe to their Fam¬ 
ilies to make their Homes Attractive, 
NOTES FROM THE RURAL GROUNDS 
Select Hardy Shrub* nnd Trees for the Counlry 
and Suburban Home. 
There is not a shrub or tree mentioned in 
this paper which may not be found in the nur¬ 
serymen's catalogues which are uoticed in the 
columns of the Rural New-Yorker from time 
to time. Jut such lists present hundreds of 
plants which, for one reason or another, are 
not well adapted to country homes in general. 
THE DWARF HORSE-CHESTNUT.—Pavia macrostachya. 
eo. 
tainted. In many cases, Buch disappointments or balls of flowers, are larger than those of the 
nd in discouraging people from further en- Guelder Rose (Viburnum Opulus) and more 
ieavors, while a better selection might have compact, of a white color slightly tinted with 
iroven the beginning of that love of beautify- green, and they remain upon the bush for a 
