WHAT CAN BE DONE IN TEN YEARS 
AT MAKING A COUNTRY HOME-II. 
By MARY C. ROBBINS 
( Continued from the October number of House and Garden') 
I N the beginning we were too much occu¬ 
pied with the practical problem of planting 
and the anxieties incident upon keeping trees 
alive to do more than devote our energies to 
converting a desolate waste into well-shaded 
lawns and a fruitful garden. 
Our experience in undertaking to make 
trees grow upon a gravelly soil, in a climate 
where dry summers and severe winters are 
the rule, may be of value to those who would 
set about the same task did they not fear 
that result would not follow effort promptly 
enough to repay them for the exertion. 
It is easier to make trees grow in the 
Middle States than in Massachusetts, but 
everywhere planting and raising anything 
mean thought and labor, and the detail of 
what was done at “ Overlea ” may be of ser¬ 
vice toothers. In the first place large holes 
were dug, five or six feet in diameter, into 
which several cartloads of loam and compost 
were dumped and left to settle. It is better, 
if possible, to do this work in the autumn, 
and plant trees in the following spring, when 
rain and snow and frost have crumbled the 
ground and made it suitable for working ; 
but we went ahead immediately with no dire 
consequences. 
We made mistakes in too severely pruning 
the young trees sent to us, but experience 
taught us to keep 
them in their 
natural form with 
a proper leader, 
trimming in the 
side branches, so 
as to leave the 
tree always in a 
pyramidal shape, 
no matter how 
closely cut back. 
In this way taller 
and handsomer 
shaped trees are 
assured. Often 
saplings 
lopped roughly off at the top, in which case 
too many branches crop out, and the tree 
loses the lift and spring of its natural lead¬ 
ers and becomes bushy, so that the branches 
have to be thinned out frequently, as it 
grows, to bring it into shape. 
For quick shade, while waiting for more 
valuable trees to develop, there is nothing 
more valuable than the common white wil¬ 
low ( Salix alba), which, though flourishing 
best in damp lowlands, will grow anywhere if 
properly watered. The golden osier [Salix, 
alba, • var . vitellina ) also affords shade 
promptly, but is unshapely and short lived, 
and merely suitable, like Lombardy poplars, 
to use as a nurse for better trees. 
These, with the ash-leaved maple [Acer 
negundo ), were planted near the house, to be 
removed later, and they have gradually been 
cut down, as the permanent trees, set out 
forty feet away from them, showed signs of 
requiring more room for roots and branches. 
Several of these were chosen for quick 
growth rather than for long life, since if one 
plants a place in middle life one wishes to 
see some of the fruit of one’s labors. Such 
are the Norway maple (. Acer Norwegiensis), 
and the white maple (A. dyascarpum), which 
attain a respectable size in ten or fifteen 
years from a good sized nursery tree. We 
chose one of each 
of these, five 
inches in diame¬ 
ter six feet from 
the ground, and 
set them out in 
the best positions 
available, and 
they have amply 
rewarded our 
care, and grow 
and spread nobly 
after the manner 
of their kind. 
It is rather com¬ 
mon to hear 
“overlea” IN 1888 THE AUTHOR^ HOME 
rl View from the Street 
are 
