House and Garden 
insects and fungi—all are necessary to insure 
health and safety to the nursling. Even in the 
third season the planter cannot he too careful, 
in case of drought and parching winds, to see 
that moisture is supplied in proper quantities, 
not on the surface alone, but by means of drain 
tiles led directly to the delicate underground 
organs which nourish and strengthen the tree. 
Planting a place is like furnishing a house. 
One starts in with trees as one does with a 
sideboard and a dining table, one sows a 
lawn as one buys a carpet ; then, little by 
little, shrubs are added as are chairs and 
cabinets to a drawing room, and finally come 
the flowers as ornaments and pictures. 
No one need be deterred by the size of 
the task, for a little can be done at once, and 
one thing follows another naturally and 
easily. Nor need the possible expense stag¬ 
ger one, for if you live in a friendly country 
neighborhood, there is always somebody who 
wishes to get rid of a superfluous tree or 
shrub, so that you can have it for the mov¬ 
ing; and cuttings and roots of flowers go 
a-begging every day wherein there is a gar¬ 
den to be weeded. The friendly interchange 
of different plants is a part of the amenities 
of country living. Through it one comes to 
be on friendly terms with all sorts and con¬ 
ditions of men, and really nothing quite takes 
the place of a garden as a common interest 
with one’s rural neighbors of every degree. 
One can scarcely imagine anything more 
depressing than the bare poles of our stick 
garden during the first year. Scanty tufts of 
leaves made a brave struggle against wind 
and drought, and by aid of constant and 
careful watering pulled through the summer. 
A long row of willows set as a fence along 
the rear boundary of the place budded and 
took hold; grass started ; the Virginia 
creeper began to climb feebly over the foun¬ 
dations of the porch and some hardy peren¬ 
nials, set in the garden, veiled the bare beds 
with leaves. The afternoon sun beat hotly 
upon the unshaded roofs and verandahs, 
and we looked out upon the little hopeless 
trees, about on a level with the window fast¬ 
enings of the first story, and felt skeptical. 
Our grandchildren may sit in their shade, we 
thought, but it will merely be ours to cherish 
their feeble existence year after year, and 
fight for them with the voracious caterpillar. 
Had we not been too busy we should have 
been depressed. As it was, we were either 
at one end of a hose or a weeder all summer, 
and lively activity prevented morbid fears. 
On the bare hillside north of the house a 
number of pines had been planted. They 
were too far off' for the hose to reach them, 
and a man trudged patiently from the faucet 
to each tree with pails of water when the 
situation seemed critical. 
“Your trees will never live in that sandy 
place,” said a passer-by. 
“ It the missus says they are to grow, they 
will grow,” said one not of little faith, and 
was justified. Some failed, but many re¬ 
mained, and others took the place of the dead. 
The second summer came ; the lawn was 
fairly green, though weedy; the trees took a 
fresh start; the simple garden burst into bloom. 
It was a caterpillar year, and life was one long 
warfare, but we conquered. T he trees lived, 
the hill was dotted with little green spots which, 
when the snow fel I,asserted themselves as pines, 
and the rural public became less skeptical. 
By the middle of the third summer we 
began to be proud. T he look of desolation 
had gone, the cropped trees had taken form 
once more. Passers-by began to be commend¬ 
atory ; the public applauded with its, “ Wal, 
I never thought you could do it,” and 
pretty soon our shabby stretch of nearlv a 
thousand feet along the main street of the 
village, instead of being a forlorn disgrace, 
showed hedges, rows of evergreens, and an 
established shrubbery in place of a rickety 
fence. A salt marsh in the rear of the gar¬ 
den by that time was filled in, and waved 
with English grass; the long row of willows 
along the street in the rear was forming a close 
green boundary ; the terraces had been ex¬ 
tended; one or two retaining walls built; and 
added surface obtained by filling up to them. 
Everything that was done seemed to tell, 
and to give an air of finish to the place 
which it had sorely lacked, and of a sudden 
we realized that not only material was neces¬ 
sary for an effect, but order and design, so 
that we began to study what we had done as a 
painter studies his first rough sketch for a pic¬ 
ture, to see what could be added to enhance the 
natural beauty of the spot, and to emphasize 
that charm of old and new combined which 
formed the real attraction of our simple home. 
i 87 
(To be co?itmued.') 
