THE RESCUE OF AN OLD 
 PLACE 
 
 MARY CAROLINE ROBBINS 
 
 When Epicurus to the world had taught 
 
 That pleasure was the chiefest good, 
 (And was perhaps i' the right, if rightly understood,) 
 
 His life he to his doctrine brought, 
 And in a garden's shade that sovereign pleasure sought. 
 
 ABRAHAM COWLBY 
 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 foe Rrtjersibe j&rcssi, Camim&oe 
 1892
 
 Copyright, 1892, 
 BY MARY CAROLINE ROBBINS. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A. 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.
 
 To J. H. R. 
 
 i tJttitcatc 
 
 THESE RECORDS OF OUR HAPPY YEARS 
 OF WORK AND HOPE.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction .............. vii 
 
 I. The Old Place .......... i 
 
 II. Planting Willows and Pines ..... n 
 
 III. A Baby Forest .......... 23 
 
 IV. Clearing Up ........... 35 
 
 V. On the Perversity of Certain Trees ... 51 
 
 VI. The Wreck of an Ancient Garden ... 63 
 VII. A New Perennial Garden ...... 75 
 
 VIII. A Venerable Orchard ........ 85 
 
 IX. A Struggle with the Web-worm .... 97 
 
 X. Planting Trees on a Lawn ...... in 
 
 XI. Reclaiming a Salt Meadow ...... 123 
 
 XII. Terraces and Shrubs ........ 137 
 
 XIII. Evergreens in Spring ........ 151 
 
 XIV. The Love of Flowers in America . . . .165 
 XV. The Rose-Chafer ......... 177 
 
 XVI. Sufferings from Drought ....... 191 
 
 XVII. The Blessing of the Rain ...... 203 
 
 XVIII. Discouragements ......... 215 
 
 XIX. A Water Garden ......... 229 
 
 XX. Landscape Gardening ........ 245 
 
 XXI. The Waning Year and its Suggestions . . 261 
 
 XXII. Utility versus Beauty ........ 277
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 These chapters, which originally ap- 
 peared in Garden and Forest, were written 
 partly to acknowledge a, debt for many 
 practical suggestions derived from its 
 pages, which helped us in our efforts to 
 bring harmony and beauty out of neglect 
 and desolation in one of the "abandoned 
 farms" of Massachusetts; and at the 
 same time to show the pleasure and inter- 
 est we found in endeavoring to create a 
 garden and forest of our own. 
 
 The experiments that I relate are by 
 no means completed, and the mistakes 
 made will call for sympathy, as tbe suc- 
 cesses will claim congratulations ; but to 
 those who will kindly go with me along 
 the way we have come, at all events the 
 story ought to show what can be done with 
 moderate expense, by the aid of such ex- 
 cellent publications as are now within
 
 Introduction 
 
 reach of every one, and how, by loving 
 labor, the old may be made to add charm 
 and dignity to the new, while the new 
 lends purpose and meaning to the old. 
 What has given so much delight in doing, 
 must, it seems to me, give pleasure when 
 told, and it is in this hope that I venture 
 to detail our very simple experience. 
 
 M. C R. 
 
 Overlea, October 8, 1891.
 
 I 
 
 THE OLD PLACE
 
 In a coign of the cliff between lowland and high- 
 land, 
 At the sea-down's edge between windward and 
 
 lee, 
 Walled round with rocks as an inland island, 
 
 The ghost of a garden fronts the sea. 
 A girdle of brushwood and thorn encloses 
 
 The steep square slope of the blossomless bed 
 Where the weeds that grew green from the graves 
 of its roses 
 Now lie dead. 
 
 SWINBURNE.
 
 I 
 
 IN the very heart of old New oid houses 
 
 in Neiv 
 
 England towns there may often England. 
 be seen some dilapidated house 
 falling into ruins, surrounded 
 by half -dead fruit-trees and straggling 
 shrubs, while an adjacent garden, once 
 productive and blooming, runs to waste 
 beside it. Its gates are off the hinges, 
 the fences falling to pieces, the hedges 
 untrimmed, the flower-beds smothered in 
 weeds; coarse burdocks and rampant wild 
 vines encumber the ground and run over 
 into the highway, the trim paths have 
 disappeared, the out-houses are toppling 
 over : forlornness and abandonment speak 
 in every line of the decaying house, the 
 former gentility of which renders its de- 
 cline still more melancholy. 
 
 It was such a dreary old place as this 
 that attracted our attention when we first 
 came to settle in Massachusetts. Why 
 3
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 such a desirable spot should have fallen 
 into disrepute was always a surprise, for 
 the situation in itself was excellent, the 
 estate running for nine hundred feet along 
 the main street of the town, and lying 
 about half way between the two villages 
 known in popular parlance as The Plain 
 and Broad Bridge, so that it was only a 
 quarter of a mile from the post-office of 
 one, while the railway station of the other 
 was within a ten minutes' moderate walk 
 for a man. Moreover, it commanded a 
 lovely inland view, and had an unusual 
 variety of surface to make it interesting, 
 as well as a fertile soil for grass and gar- 
 den. 
 
 A flensing The view was what particularly ap- 
 pealed to us, for it comprised a charming 
 stretch of salt meadow, with a blue stream 
 winding through it like a ribbon, skirted 
 by low, heavily wooded hills, with a dis- 
 tant glimpse of houses overtopped by the 
 masts of the shipping in the harbor. 
 From the higher leveb of the farm one 
 could catch a glimpse, when the leaves 
 were off the trees, of a strip of blue sea, 
 and Boston Light could plainly be seen 
 4
 
 The Old Place 
 
 revolving after sundown, while of a still 
 evening the monotonous roll of the waves 
 upon the beach could be clearly heard. 
 
 The old house, which we vainly tried to The ruined 
 find habitable, had stood for two hundred house ' 
 years, and must have been a fine dwelling 
 in its day ; its rooms, though low-ceiled, 
 being spacious and numerous, and their 
 outlook picturesque. It was ill-planned 
 for modern ideas, though many of its con- 
 temporaries in this ancient town are still 
 occupied, and by a little alteration made 
 very comfortable ; while, owing to neglect 
 and ill usage by tenants, the owners hav- 
 ing long since moved away, it was in a 
 condition of hopeless disrepair. The floors 
 had settled, and the walls with them, un- 
 til in some of the lower rooms there were 
 gaps beside the beams of the ceiling, in 
 which rats or squirrels had made their 
 nests, so that supplies of nuts were to be 
 seen safely stored away in the holes. The 
 window-panes were broken, the shingles 
 mossgrown and ragged, the chimneys fall- 
 ing into ruins, and the sills had rotted 
 away. Moreover, the road that wound by 
 the door had been so raised by the accre- 
 5
 
 Tbe Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 tion of two hundred years, that the part of 
 the place around the house lay in a hollow, 
 and, there being no one to complain, the 
 town dug water-ways and coolly drained 
 the road over the surface of the ground, 
 so that, after a spring freshet, piles of 
 sand were to be found all over the grass, 
 giving the farm a water-logged aspect that 
 added to its disrepute. 
 
 We buy the From this, and from the fact that, situ- 
 oidpiace. ^^ ag ^ wag b etween t ^e two villages, 
 
 it formed absolutely a part of neither of 
 them to us an advantage rather than a 
 drawback, but to the town's-people an ob- 
 jection it resulted that when the farm 
 was put up at auction, some ten years ago, 
 no purchaser could be found at any price. 
 Finally, convinced that the land was worth 
 more without the house than with it, the 
 owner took it down, and, to the great 
 amusement and consternation of the old 
 farmers, who despised the spot, we bought 
 the place for a moderate sum, having con- 
 vinced ourselves by careful examination 
 that it would at least give us an occupa- 
 tion for the rest of our natural lives to get 
 it into condition ; and as that was what 
 6
 
 The Old Place 
 
 one of us wanted, we were disposed to try 
 what could be made of it, and confound " 
 our critics. 
 
 Then arose in the village a murmur of 
 disapprobation and superior wisdom, such 
 as is apt to follow any purchase in a New 
 England country town. 
 
 " What does the doctor want of that for- Comments 
 lorn old hole ? Only a salt-ma'sh to look at, "neighbors. 
 and the road a-drainin' right into it all the 
 time. Ain't no place to put a house ; too 
 shady and wet where the old one was, and 
 ef he goes up on the hill he '11 jest blow 
 away. Used to be a good farm in the old 
 man's time ; best garden spot in town, but 
 pretty well run out now ; and the fences ! 
 It '11 take all he '11 earn to keep them 
 fences in repair ; half a mile o' fencin' ef 
 there 's a rod." 
 
 And so the croaking went on behind 
 our backs, and sometimes to our faces, 
 with only a word of good-will now and 
 then from people who recalled the charm 
 of the old place when it was in the hands 
 of the family, and hoped that something 
 of it might in time be restored. 
 
 We ourselves, left face to face with our 
 7
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 bargain, went over the land, now our own, 
 and took heart of grace as we planned our 
 first improvements, and decided on a site 
 for the house. When we took an account 
 of stock, this is what we found : 
 
 A curiously shaped piece of land, some- 
 thing like the State of Maryland, omitting 
 the Eastern Shore. The long front of 
 about nine hundred feet, lying upon the 
 main street, at its southern end was nearly 
 six hundred feet in depth ; but this part of 
 the place was a barren gravelly hill, which 
 had been pastured until nothing was to be 
 found upon it but a thin, wiry grass, full of 
 white-weed and a growth of short briers. 
 In the autumn it was a blaze of Golden- 
 rod. The hill sloped steeply to the north 
 and northeast, so that the side of it was 
 exposed and cold, the wind sweeping up 
 across the meadow from the sea in bleak- 
 est gusts. This we at once determined 
 was the place to plant Pines, with a view 
 to a subsequent forest. At the foot of the 
 hill was a fertile swale of excellent grass 
 land, which intervened between it and a 
 second rise of land, which was the termi- 
 nation of another gravelly hill, through 
 8
 
 The Old Place 
 
 which the main street had been cut, leaving 
 upon our side a small knoll, from which 
 the ground sloped in every direction, mak- 
 ing a perfectly drained and slightly ele- 
 vated spot for a house, an excellent, but 
 rather limited situation, perfectly barren 
 of trees and requiring much grading. 
 
 On the north side of this knoll was an- 
 other abrupt slope, and then the ground 
 swept on below the level of the highway, 
 gradually narrowing, as a back street, run- 
 ning obliquely, came to intersect the main 
 road at the northern extremity of the 
 place, where was an Apple orchard of im- 
 mense old trees whose bending boughs 
 swept the ground ; and in the very point 
 a wilderness of Locusts and Wild Cher- 
 ries. 
 
 The site of the old house, shaded by T/U old site 
 some fine Elms and White Ashes, was too %&/% 
 near both streets to be at all desirable, new!wtse - 
 though the shrubbery and the tangled re- 
 mains of an old flower-garden rendered it 
 very attractive ; but at the rear the salt- 
 marsh was in too close proximity, and 
 about half an acre bordering on the back 
 street was so overflowed at times by salt 
 9
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 water that it would only afford a crop of 
 marsh-grass. 
 
 The neighborhood of this meadow was 
 thought to be one of the drawbacks of the 
 spot by many; but knowing that it was 
 perfectly wholesome, and certainly beauti- 
 ful, to us it was only an added advantage, 
 so long as the gravelly knoll gave us so 
 good a foundation for our dwelling. 
 A ftnce of Our first problem, the fences, we deter- 
 mined to deal with by planting Willows. 
 The barren hillside was to be screened 
 with Pines, and procuring and setting these 
 was our first subject for consideration.
 
 II 
 
 PLANTING WILLOWS AND 
 PINES
 
 " Willow ! in thy breezy moan 
 
 I can hear a deeper tone ; 
 Through thy leaves come whispering low 
 Faint sweet songs of long ago 
 Willow, sighing willow ! " 
 
 MRS. HEMANS. 
 
 " Who liveth by the ragged pine, 
 Foundeth an heroic line." 
 
 EMERSON.
 
 II 
 
 |HEN one has nearly half a mile 
 of boundary to define around 
 his four-acre lot, the question 
 arises how it can be inclosed 
 with the least expense and trouble, and in 
 such a way as not to disfigure the grounds. 
 With this problem we had now to deal. 
 
 The front upon the main street, thanks 
 to the sociable fashion of our day, it would 
 be quite proper to leave open, with only 
 such screen of shrubs and trees as we 
 should decide upon when the house was 
 built, and the lawn properly graded. Part 
 of it was already well hedged in with an- 
 cient bushes, which straggled about where 
 the old house stood, in most admired dis- 
 order. But all along Winter Street, as the 
 road behind us is somewhat ambitiously 
 designated, the fence was tumbling down, 
 and the whole garden spot lay uncomfort- 
 ably open to view, as well as to the cold 
 13
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 w e decide east winds that blow across the meadow 
 waiws. from the sea. We decided that here a 
 row of Willows would come in admirably, 
 as there would be plenty of rich moist soil 
 for the young trees to root in, and with 
 such a protection the wind-swept garden 
 would in time be warm and secluded, 
 while the silvery foliage would be a har- 
 monious setting for the emerald meadow 
 and the sapphire stream. 
 
 This idea we carried out the week after 
 we made our purchase. A friendly far- 
 mer neighbor, compassionating our folly in 
 starting such an enterprise, but anxious to 
 see what we would make out of the place, 
 kindly offered to give us as many cuttings 
 as we wanted ; so one bright day in June 
 he appeared upon the scene with a cart- 
 load of Willows, a crowbar, and a hatchet, 
 and, with a man or two to help him, before 
 night he had cut and driven firmly into 
 holes, easily punched by the crowbar in 
 the soft soil, some five hundred bare 
 stakes, every one of which in a few weeks 
 put forth a crop of roots and leaves. 
 
 The stakes, sharpened at the end, were 
 about three feet in length, one foot of
 
 Planting Willows and Pines 
 
 which was driven into the ground, and HOW we did 
 firmly stamped into place. It was found 
 better, in driving them, to have them set at 
 an angle of about twenty degrees, with the 
 tops pointing toward the south, so that 
 the stems did not receive the full force of 
 the midday and afternoon sun. We used 
 the common White Willow (Salix alba), 
 which abounds along swampy roadsides 
 everywhere in New England. 
 
 These trees have all thriven well, though 
 owing to the marsh being salter in certain 
 places than in others, some have grown 
 less rapidly than their companions. The 
 fear of the salt water led us into the error 
 of planting one row of trees at first inside 
 the fence, and at some distance from it, 
 where the presence of Clover and English 
 Grass showed that the top soil was fresh. 
 Subsequently, when they were all well 
 rooted, we removed them to the outside 
 along the highway, where they now begin 
 to make an agreeable shade and an effec- 
 tive screen. The annual dumpings of sand 
 made by the town along the edge of the 
 road, to maintain its level, which con- 
 stantly tends to sink into the marsh across
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 which it has been carefully built, seem to 
 help the trees, which continue to send out 
 surface-roots as the ground rises about 
 them ; and though some of them during 
 their first seasons had a sorry time of it 
 in dry, hot weather, they ultimately pulled 
 through, and are no longer sources of anx- 
 iety. 
 
 The barren The most exposed portion of the place 
 being thus provided for, we turned our at- 
 tention to the barren hillside, which was 
 a pretty hopeless-looking spot for trees of 
 any kind. This elevation, some forty feet 
 high and running back nearly six hundred 
 feet from the main street, seems to be the 
 bank of some former water-way ; at least 
 I like to fancy that the odd terraces, 
 which break its otherwise even slope, re- 
 present the gradual subsidence of some 
 body of water which must once have filled 
 the gorge, when the present meadow was 
 an arm of the sea. Gravel and sand, 
 mixed with moderate-sized cobblestones, 
 are its constituent parts, nothing like a 
 boulder having come so far down. We 
 have often regretted that some of the no- 
 ble rocks which abound on the other side 
 16
 
 Planting Willows and Pines 
 
 of the street, farther up the former stream, 
 were not on our hill to form a feature in 
 our landscape-gardening, marked as they 
 are with the scratches which show the 
 grinding of some primeval glacier. 
 
 Over the rough foundation of our hill a character 
 thin soil has formed itself ; fairly deep on - fthe sotl ' 
 the level top where the plain begins, but 
 constantly washed off down the sides into 
 the swale below. It seems hardly possi- 
 ble that trees can ever have grown here, 
 nor are there the smallest traces of any in 
 or upon the soil ; but here we resolved 
 that trees should grow; and again the 
 farmers mocked at such a wild idea, and 
 looked forward with sombre satisfaction 
 to our discomfiture. 
 
 But how to set about it ? 
 
 To plow the surface, unless we could A harmless 
 yoke a goat to the plow, seemed impossi- 
 ble, since we had just seen a man and 
 a horse and a dump-cart roll together, in 
 a confused but unharmed heap, from the 
 top to the bottom, on account of an incau- 
 tious step off the level. Even if we could 
 have plowed the ungrateful soil, of what 
 use would it have been, since there was 
 17
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 nothing to bring to the surface but stones ? 
 Cultivation being apparently out of the 
 question, the trees would have to take 
 their chance, and a wretched chance, too, 
 for the south shore of Massachusetts Bay 
 is subject to long and severe droughts, 
 and to several months of hot weather in 
 the summer. 
 
 A north But here we were upheld by our author- 
 
 S for Pines, ities. An excellent book on forestry gave 
 us some consoling statistics, and later, our 
 favorite horticultural journal was invalu- 
 able in its suggestions. We found that in 
 reforesting hills in France and Switzerland 
 that had been swept bare by avalanches, 
 a northeast slope proved the most favor- 
 able exposure for the growth of young 
 Pines, and, if we had nothing else, we had 
 plenty of north and east, with the winds 
 thrown in ; so, if that was the sort of thing 
 that they liked, why, bring on the Pines, 
 and let them have all they want of it. 
 
 But by the time we got round to this 
 job, as the farmers say, the season for 
 spring planting of Pines was over, and an 
 exceptionally dry and burning summer was 
 in full blast, and the very grass on the hill 
 18
 
 Planting Willows and Pines 
 
 was crisped and dry. Our impatience, 
 however, was too great to permit us to 
 wait for another year to begin our experi- 
 ment. We had read some accounts of 
 August planting of Pines, and determined 
 to have our little fling on the spot, and 
 find out for ourselves whether it was a 
 good time or not. 
 
 So we waited, as anxiously as the pro- Weku 
 phet Elijah, for the first sign of rain, and ' 
 when at last the brassy heavens veiled 
 themselves in cloud about the middle of 
 August, we started off after trees not 
 the pampered darlings of a nursery, used 
 to water and rich soil, but the hardy road- 
 side denizens of dry pastures and sand- 
 hills. We picked out the driest and sandi- 
 est spots to dig them from, so that if their 
 roots discovered nothing to feed upon in 
 their new locality, they would, from long 
 habit, have got used to short commons, and 
 could adapt themselves to the situation. 
 
 Before going out we had the men dig 
 holes over the surface of the side hill with 
 a grub-hoe, banking up the thin soil at the 
 lower side of the holes with sods, so as to 
 make little dams to retain the water ; in
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 these holes we set the trees we selected, 
 which were not over three feet high, but 
 stocky and well rooted. When possible 
 We plant we took up the dirt with them, keeping 
 their roots moist, and well shaded in the 
 cart, and no more were brought at a time 
 than could be set in two or three hours. 
 After they were all planted, with great 
 labor and trouble, AVC gave our nursery 
 a thorough watering, and then, except 
 on two or three subsequent occasions, 
 when things looked really desperate from 
 drought, they were left to take their 
 chance. Luckily that year the rains be- 
 gan to fall soon after they were set, and 
 the autumn was a very wet one, so that a 
 good many of the little trees were living 
 in the spring ; but another batch, set in 
 the latter part of May the following year, 
 owing possibly to the very heavy rains of 
 1888 and 1889, did so much better, that 
 we shall always be disposed to give the 
 preference to spring planting in the fu- 
 ture. 
 
 Of some one hundred and fifty Pines set 
 upon this barren northerly hillside, under 
 these cruel conditions, about eighty sur- 
 20
 
 Planting Willows and Pines 
 
 vive, a few of which are still leading a pre- 
 carious existence, while the greater part 
 are flourishing bravely, making a fine show 
 in winter against the snow. In summer 
 they shade so completely into the unkempt 
 green background of the hill that, unless 
 seen in profile, they are barely visible, even 
 when five feet high, and very bushy. Still Seeds an 
 
 disappoint- 
 
 farther back we have tried setting out very ?.. 
 small Pines, and have sown the ground in 
 autumn with countless Pine-seeds, and 
 nuts of all sorts, which come up satisfac- 
 torily enough, and do bravely for a month 
 or two, but suffer dreadfully in July and 
 August. They are a fruitful source of 
 anxiety and disappointment, because they 
 cannot make up their minds whether to live 
 or die. The young Oaks are especially 
 trying in this respect, for when we have 
 fairly given them up for lost, they thrust 
 out a feeble little leaf and make a fresh 
 effort at existence, but at this rate a mil- 
 lennium will be too short for them to get 
 their growth in. I have read somewhere 
 that an Oak grew from an acorn in this 
 commonwealth of Massachusetts, forty 
 feet in fourteen years, but if these hillside 
 21
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 acorns achieve fourteen feet in forty years 
 we shall feel we have not lived in vain. 
 Hffuitomake "What do you do to make trees grow?" 
 I asked an Englishman who was coaxing 
 along a rebellious Butternut to some show 
 of vigor. 
 
 " Oh ! " said he, " I just talks to 'em, 
 and tells 'em to grow, and they grow." 
 
 Mindful of this advice, I do not fail to 
 exhort these recreant acorns, but no 
 teacher of a primary school ever had a 
 worse time in getting a shoot out of a 
 young idea, than do I out of this infant 
 class of refractory nuts and seeds.
 
 Ill 
 
 A BABY FORES2
 
 The seed has started, who can stay it ? See, 
 The leaves are sprouting high above the ground. 
 Already o'er the flowers its head ; the tree 
 That rose beside it, and that on it frowned, 
 Behold ! is but a small bush by its side. 
 Still on ! it cannot stop ; its branches spread ; 
 It looks o'er all the earth in giant pride. 
 
 JONES VERY.
 
 Ill 
 
 E know that mothers love best The unlove- 
 
 . . ., , , , linessofthe 
 
 those children who give them hm. 
 the most trouble, and it must be 
 on some such principle that this 
 barren hillside of ours wins our best af- 
 fections ; for, as we cultivate its seemingly 
 thankless surface, while it disappoints and 
 resists our loving efforts, all the more 
 there grows in us a tender comprehension 
 of its hidden beauty, a wider sense of its 
 possibilities, and a greater patience with 
 the slow processes by which it is to be 
 restored to vigor and productiveness. 
 
 We sympathize with its struggle for self- 
 adornment, poor, barren, ugly thing. The 
 cold northern slope comes slowly to life, 
 turned away as it lies from the fostering 
 sunlight. When the plain and swale are 
 bright with the hues of spring, the uncut 
 grass upon its side is still brown and with- 
 ered ; it seems to dread awakening from 
 2 5
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 its winter sleep, but at last it begins to 
 star itself over with blossoms of white 
 Saxifrage, and anon it grows purple with 
 Bird's-foot Violets, sending out in the sun- 
 shine that soft, fleeting perfume which is 
 a hint of the riper fragrance of their Eng- 
 lish cousins. 
 
 Th* flowers At this season, too, the exquisite wild 
 * to Columbine decks it with earrings of coral 
 and gold, which the country children call 
 meeting-houses from their steeple-shaped 
 horns, and over it the all-pervading Daisy 
 waves its white and yellow blossoms stur- 
 dily in the wind, while the wild briers put 
 forth their roses, and the Dog's-bane its 
 fragrant cymes, till the Goldenrods and 
 Asters come at last to hide its barrenness 
 with their royal splendor. And all the 
 while there are short, thin grasses, of ten- 
 der greens and browns, clothing it humbly, 
 while spots of vivid emerald moss indicate 
 the presence of hidden rivulets that feed 
 a living spring that lies at its foot. 
 
 In this spring is the possibility of a 
 water garden, of which there is already a 
 beginning. All summer long you can see 
 shining there the blue eyes of great For- 
 26
 
 A Baby Forest 
 
 get-me-nots, the seeds of whose forefathers 
 were brought, long ago, from stately Fon- 
 tainebleau by a gentle artist, who planted 
 them by his own brookside, whence they 
 have overrun and made famous the Hing- 
 ham Meadows, their bright blossoms, like 
 scattered fragments of the sky, gleaming 
 among the rushes, and affording a valu- 
 able industry to the small boys who sell 
 them at the railway station as you pass. 
 In addition to these continuously bloom- 
 ing flowers, there are Pussy Willows and 
 white Violets in the spring, and in the late 
 summer the Arrowhead lifts its sculptur- 
 esque blossom and fine outlined leaf from 
 the water, and the Cardinal-flower uprears 
 its scarlet spikes amid the blossoms of 
 stately grasses. Some day we hope to see 
 a Pond Lily asleep upon its surface, and 
 if the Lotus-flower would but brook our 
 rigorous winters, we should add one to the 
 collection. 
 
 At the foot of the hill, at each end, is a stray ia- 
 clump of White Birches, ladies of the dit *' 
 woods that have strayed from their home, 
 and lost themselves on this waste, and 
 rustle their thin leaves timorously, bend- 
 27
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 ing their slender white stems as the sea- 
 blasts strike them. Now that we have 
 stopped mowing and pasturing, we find 
 clumps of Bayberry and Chokecherry 
 bushes coming up under the tumble-down 
 old rail-fences between us and our neigh- 
 bors, so that these last are already high 
 enough to shade the boys when, tired and 
 hot with play, they throw themselves upon 
 the ground under their grateful protection. 
 jr or on t h e summit of the hill there is level 
 space enough, inside our line, for a tennis- 
 court, from which you can look for a mile 
 across the meadow to the tree-clad hills 
 beyond, and the clustered houses and 
 masts of the harbor, half-buried in trees, 
 and seek for the blue line upon the high 
 horizon that indicates the sea. 
 
 Straggling paths, worn by careless feet, 
 lead up the hillside in those pleasant, 
 meandering ways that indicate the foot of 
 man, and, in imagination, we see them 
 shaded by the Birches and Pines that we 
 have hopefully planted along the borders ; 
 for, in moving our trees with the surround- 
 ing sod, we usually brought along these 
 close companions ; the Pines and Birches 
 28
 
 A Baby Forest 
 
 being so married, in most instances, that 
 it seemed a cruelty to separate them. 
 
 Hope and faith are qualities that find 
 splendid exercise in tree-planting, and no 
 pursuit can be more unselfish ; for, as we 
 watch the tardy growth of our plantations, 
 it is with the stern conviction that other 
 eyes than ours will see the waving of tree- 
 tops above them, and that far younger feet 
 will tread the fragrant woodland ways 
 when they are at last carpeted with Pine- 
 needles. It is by this spirit that we be- 
 come one with Nature, sharing humbly in 
 her patience, in her vast unending plans, 
 in her bountiful provision for the future. 
 What better boon to the race can a man 
 leave than a wood that he has planted, in 
 which a future generation may walk and 
 bless his name ? Or, if the name be for- 
 gotten, there shall abide the forest-bless- 
 ing, ever beneficent, the mother of springs 
 that fertilize the plain, a shelter to the 
 weary, a delight of the eye, a source alike 
 of profit and pleasure while it endures. 
 
 We have friends who scoff when we 
 take them to walk in our forest and beg 
 them not to step on the Oaks ; but, to us, 
 29
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 these tiny seedlings, so feeble and unim- 
 portant, are personalities that we have 
 cherished through successive seasons, 
 feeding them when hungry, giving drink 
 The suffer- when dry, grieving when their tender 
 l young oaJcs. leaves, scorched by too fierce a sun, with- 
 ered and fell, and rejoicing when, under 
 the cool rains of September, their little 
 bare stems put forth fresh crowns of leaf- 
 buds. Much comfort can be taken in the 
 fact that an Oak once rooted will not 
 wholly perish, but some day conquer even 
 the most obdurate of soils. Like good 
 seed sown in the heart of a child, the 
 storms and sunshine of the world may 
 seem for a time to wither the plant to the 
 ground, but in the end the beauty and 
 power of deep-rooted character will pre- 
 vail and bear fruit. 
 
 We have in our experiments endeavored 
 to make use of such materials as lay at 
 hand, though well aware that nurseries and 
 gardens could have helped us on our way 
 more rapidly. But trees, if purchased, 
 are expensive luxuries, and our object has 
 been partly to see what can be done with- 
 out much money, and with only a moder- 
 3
 
 A Baby Forest 
 
 ate amount of labor. Our experience has Transplant* 
 shown us, what the books on forestry told satisfactory 
 
 ..... . . than sowing. 
 
 us in the beginning, that sowing seeds 
 and nuts is far less satisfactory than trans- 
 planting small trees ; but we have had the 
 entertainment of proving their statements 
 for ourselves, and find our compensation in 
 such trifling results as we have achieved. 
 The Pine seeds, which we shook from the 
 cones in the autumn, and planted before 
 they had time to dry, came up profusely 
 enough in little clusters, but so tiny and 
 weak, that it is wonderful that they are 
 ever discovered even in the thin grass of 
 the hillside, which we leave near them to 
 afford shade. They make, under these 
 conditions, a sturdy little growth so long 
 as the weather is cool and moist, but are 
 apt to disappear altogether in the month 
 of July. Any small tree, that one can 
 pull up by a wayside, will make better re- 
 turns for a little attention than these slow- 
 growing mites from seeds. 
 
 Such White Birch seed as we have sown, 
 either because we did not know when to 
 gather it, or whether it came from the 
 wrong tree, has failed to come up at all ;
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 but in the sandiest and most uncomfort- 
 able part of the hill we find little seed- 
 lings that have come up of themselves 
 from the trees at the foot, so that we are 
 fain to confess that Nature understands 
 her business better than we do. 
 
 ^ e ver y sma ^ P mes > a f ew inches high, 
 of which we have set a large number on 
 the rear of the hill, do not grow as well as 
 the larger ones, and are more apt to die. 
 So far our experience leads us to prefer 
 good-sized trees of all kinds for transplant- 
 ing, rather than small ones, the larger tree 
 seeming to have more vitality to come and 
 go upon until new roots are formed, and 
 it has become adapted to its new condi- 
 tions. 
 
 We have planted various kinds of acorns 
 in great profusion, but the Mossy-cup and 
 the Chestnut Oak seem to thrive best in 
 this waterless soil. The White and Red 
 Oaks seem to require enriching to hold 
 their own at all, and Maple seedlings, 
 which come up promptly, yield to the first 
 drought, though very small transplanted 
 trees live on. Hickories, though slow in 
 growth, are not vanquished by the con- 
 32
 
 A Baby Forest 
 
 ditions, and little yearling Chestnuts, trans- 
 planted and dug about, flourish bravely. 
 
 From a friend in town, whose English Planting 
 Walnut-tree has borne profusely after the 
 recent warm winters, we have obtained 
 fresh nuts, which, promptly set, have ger- 
 minated and given us fine little shoots in 
 one season. This tree is a more rapid 
 grower than any of our native nut-trees, 
 and so far has stood the winters, but we 
 have had no Aveather below zero here 
 since 1887, and cannot answer for the ef- 
 fect of an old-fashioned season. The field- 
 mice have a great predilection for them, 
 and gnawed our largest one down to the 
 root a year ago, but it came up again in 
 the spring with redoubled vigor, and made 
 up for lost time. 
 
 Small Black Birches, dug up by the Results. 
 roadside, and put into holes prepared for 
 them in the side of the hill, have thriven 
 without much attention, and make a fa- 
 vorable growth ; but some Ailanthus-trees 
 from a nursery, in spite of Horace Gree- 
 ley, have refused to do anything at all. In 
 the swale at the foot of the hill, where the 
 soil is deep and moist, all trees flourish. 
 33
 
 Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 English Oaks grow rapidly from acorns, 
 and we have a fine group of Chestnuts, 
 transplanted when fifteen feet high, that 
 grow well after being cut back sternly 
 when set. Though much beset by insects, 
 they are now firmly established, having 
 been planted in the autumn of 1888. In 
 this same moist, rich soil we have also had 
 very good success with that difficult tree 
 to move, the Hemlock ; and the Tulip-tree 
 and the Mulberry also flourish, though 
 the tender young branches of the latter 
 suffered after the last two warm winters, 
 dying back badly. 
 
 climbing' To get all this young family started, 
 *j!ands l the~ as ma y be imagined, took a great deal of 
 time, and much subsequent attention, one 
 favorable result of which is that from con- 
 stant clambering up the steep hill, which 
 was at first a breathless piece of business, 
 our lungs have developed to such a de- 
 gree that we are disposed to recommend 
 the cultivation of a forest on a slope to all 
 such as, like Hamlet, are " fat and scant 
 of breath," for the fine stimulus it proves 
 to the action of the heart. 
 
 34
 
 IV 
 CLEARING UP
 
 The dense hard passage is blind and stifled, 
 That crawls by a track none turn to climb 
 To the strait waste place that the years have 
 
 rifled 
 Of all but the thorns that are touched not of 
 
 Time; 
 The thorns he spares when the rose is taken ; 
 
 The rocks are left when he wastes the plain ; 
 The wind that wanders, the weeds wind-shaken, 
 These remain. 
 
 SWINBURNE.
 
 IV 
 
 " trees will grow while one 
 sleeps," according to the old 
 adage, we made planting our 
 first business, and left setting 
 the place in order to come later, for 
 it seemed to promise an indefinite job, 
 everything having gone more or less to 
 rack and ruin during its period of aban- 
 donment and desolation. 
 
 The forlornness of an old, neglected A forlorn 
 
 r , , , ,. . r old farm. 
 
 farm is largely owing to the condition ot 
 its trees and shrubs, which, being left to 
 themselves, take on a tumble-down, half- 
 dead look that often belies their real con- 
 dition. A few decayed trees bring all the 
 others into disrepute, like a grog-shop in 
 an otherwise respectable neighborhood, 
 and untrimmed shrubs are as unbecoming 
 as unkempt hair. 
 
 When we came to examine matters at 
 Overlea, as we named our acquisition, from 
 37
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 its command of the meadow, we found 
 that a good sweeping and dusting would 
 do wonders for it, and with that enthusi- 
 asm for setting to rights inborn in the 
 New England breast, we prepared for a 
 grand redding up. 
 
 While the grading of the knoll was go- 
 ing on preparatory to building the house, 
 our factotum, appropriately named Blos- 
 som, since his function was to adorn the 
 place, was busily employed in removing 
 all the unsightly dead limbs from among 
 the live ones, and in hewing down such 
 old Pear and Apple trunks as proved 
 hopeless. 
 
 A corduroy The logs and branches were dragged 
 away to the wettest place in the meadow 
 at the back of the knoll, and transformed 
 into a corduroy road, by which one could 
 pass dry-shod out into the rear street. 
 This floating rubbish, supported by the 
 tangled grass on the marsh, formed a 
 foundation upon which, after inserting a 
 plank water-way at the bottom, for the 
 ebb and flow of the tide, we subsequently 
 built a substantial carriage-road of stones 
 38
 
 Clearing Up 
 
 and gravel, which now affords a back en- 
 trance to the stable and kitchens. 
 
 The palings of the fence were removed 
 for kindlings, but the posts and rails were 
 left to form a slight boundary until the 
 hedges and tree rows should be fairly 
 established ; the straggling shrubs were 
 trimmed into better shape, the Box-arbor 
 clipped and cleared of weeds, trailing 
 vines were taught once more the use of 
 a trellis, and the grass was mown and 
 raked clean of the last year's rowan. 
 
 Fierce war was made upon the Bur- 
 dock and Mint and Horse-radish that had 
 squatted everywhere on the land ; load 
 after load of the accumulated rubbish of 
 years was buried under the corduroy road, 
 and hidden from view with gravel ; the 
 Pear-trees were carefully pruned and tied 
 up, and the old Grape trellis stiffened with 
 new posts and lattices. 
 
 When all this was done, and it was no 
 brief job, the place took on a civilized air 
 truly surprising, but, like the boy's wash- 
 ing his face, which cost his father a thou- 
 sand dollars, the felling of the first ragged 
 39
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 old tree was an entering wedge of im- 
 provements that found no end. 
 
 The clearing up revealed unsuspected 
 beauties and possibilities in the old place, 
 and at the end of it we had taken an ac- 
 count of stock, and were aware that we 
 had become owners of a treasure-house of 
 enjoyments. But the charms and wealth 
 of that old garden are " another story," 
 which remains to be told later. 
 
 Grading the While all this spring and fall cleaning 
 was going on, the heavy labor of grading 
 was in progress. Teams and men were 
 coming and going, heavy scrapers were 
 plowing part of the little knoll down into 
 the valley, and loads of gravel were being 
 dumped to bring the slopes into proper 
 form, the surface soil having been first 
 removed to cover the future lawn. Week 
 by week the work went on, till the very 
 landscape changed its contours, as the re- 
 moval of the crown of the knoll threw 
 open to view, from the sidewalk, the fine 
 stretch of green meadow and blue stream, 
 once hidden from view by its cone. 
 
 When our much interested critics found 
 that we had chosen the site for our dwell- 
 40
 
 Clearing Up 
 
 ing in an unexpected part of the grounds, 
 their murmurs again reached our ears. 
 
 "Why in the world don't the doctor Advice from 
 build up on top of the hill, where he can 
 see everything, and be among neighbors ?" 
 sang half the chorus. 
 
 ' " If I had a lot of big trees like those 
 Elums I 'd get the good of 'em, and put 
 my new house on the old cellar," echoed 
 the antiphonal. 
 
 " Never can make anything better 'n a 
 Shumack-bush grow in that gravel-pit," 
 shouted they all together. 
 
 " Well, perhaps he knows what he 's 
 about," would interpose some friendly 
 voice ; " but it would n't be my way, any- 
 how. He '11 find out, come to plantin', 
 that he 's got to have soil, even for a door- 
 yard." 
 
 When it came to building the founda- 
 tions, their distance from the highway 
 seemed inordinate to most of these critics, 
 but now and then we were reproached by 
 the more ambitious for not leaving front 
 enough. In fine, we came to be in full 
 sympathy with the Old Man and His Ass 
 of the fable ; but being luckier than he in
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 having a mind of our own, we did not end 
 by pitching house and all into the water, 
 as we might have been tempted to do 
 from the multitude of counselors, in which, 
 in spite of Solomon, there is not always 
 wisdom. 
 
 Our firm conviction was that the hill, 
 in spite of the commanding view toward 
 the north, was too bleak and exposed a 
 position to be pleasant for an all-the- 
 year-round home ; it was also too near 
 the neighbors' lines, and too remote from 
 orchard and garden. 
 Conversion On the other hand, tempting as the 
 
 ofthecrit- _. . . 
 
 KS. great Elms certainly were on a hot sum- 
 
 mer day, the lot at that end of the farm 
 was quite too narrow for a house and 
 stable such as we required. The knoll, 
 though limited in area, gave us plenty of 
 elbow-room, and from its elevation we over- 
 looked the grassy swale on one side, with 
 the hill for a background, and northward 
 could view the ever-changing tints of the 
 meadow, behind the gardens and the fruit- 
 trees. Experience has confirmed the wis- 
 dom of our choice, and, in justice to our 
 advisers, I will say that they now hand- 
 42
 
 Clearing Up 
 
 somely admit that, though they " did n't 
 think much of the doctor's ch'ice, to begin 
 with," they are now convinced that " he 
 has got about the likeliest lot on the 
 street." 
 
 People question us about our Willows, A 
 and ask whether we are to make a hedge of 
 them or allow them to grow up into trees. 
 " If you allow the Willow-trees to grow 
 up," they ask, "won't they shut off all 
 your view? and if you don't allow them 
 to, won't the labor and trouble of cutting 
 them back every year be serious ? " 
 
 We do mean to let them grow into trees 
 at their own sweet will, at least for the 
 present. The knoll is so high, and the 
 slope of the ground, from the foot of it to 
 the edge of the place, so decided, that our 
 veranda - floor is some twenty -five feet 
 above the level where the Willows are set, 
 so that they can grow for some years to 
 come without becoming an annoyance. 
 They are also quite a long distance away, 
 as the line runs diagonally between us and 
 the meadow. Should they ever become 
 a serious obstruction, polling once in five 
 years, we think, will keep them where we 
 43
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 want them, as from our elevation we can 
 look directly over the top of a very tall old 
 Apple-tree which stands at the foot of the 
 slope near the house, and a Willow in the 
 distance will have to be quite a tree to be 
 really troublesome. A vista cut here and 
 there in the line will really enhance the 
 charm of the prospect, but at present they 
 are not more than fifteen feet high. 
 
 Another inquiry has been made with 
 regard to the preparation of the soil on 
 the hill for the Pines. 
 
 ThePn- Unfortunately, we did nothing in the 
 
 ^kersofour way of making a bed for them beyond the 
 process I have described. No doubt, 
 they would have fared much better for a 
 little feeding, and more of them would 
 have lived, but the hill was very steep and 
 hard to get at, even with a wheelbarrow ; 
 and, besides, we had no soil to spare, for 
 we needed everything we could get for 
 the lawn, and did not care to buy any for 
 so doubtful an enterprise. We therefore 
 tried our experiment under the sternest 
 conditions. However, those tiny Pilgrim 
 Fathers of the future forest stood the trial 
 like little men. Some of them, it is true, 
 44
 
 Clearing Up 
 
 died of consumption, and some of fever ; 
 but the survivors are growing tall and 
 stout on their poor pickings, and will do 
 us credit yet. 
 
 There is one of them, nicknamed Epis- The history 
 copus, from its birthplace in the church 
 lot, which is a beautiful illustration of 
 that fable called Nature and Education, 
 in " Evenings at Home," a book which 
 was the delight of the childhood of a pre- 
 vious generation, and an infinite bore to 
 the present advanced infant. 
 
 I spied the poor thing one day hanging 
 by one root to the side of a sandhill, which 
 was being graded to a smooth slope, and 
 asked the men who were working there to 
 let me have it. Though much ridiculed 
 for its shapeless and unpromising aspect, 
 it was given a comfortable shelf pretty 
 well down on the slope, and coaxed to 
 hold its head up by various devices. Un- 
 used to kind treatment, this wayside waif, 
 which had got used to growing nearly up- 
 side down, hung its head and sidled up 
 against the hill, and seemed to find its 
 branches as much in its way as the legs 
 and arms of a guttersnipe in a parlor ; but 
 45
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 time and training, and the neighborhood 
 of Boston have their influence even on a 
 Pine, and that clerical tree is now a very 
 Bishop in erectness and dignity, having 
 been lopped and pruned and tied to stakes, 
 till it puts the most symmetrical of the 
 other Pines to shame by the vigor of its 
 development, proving that if anything can 
 " beat Nature " it is Education. 
 
 The consolation of having a limited 
 number of trees is that each one acquires 
 an individuality, and their owner gets to 
 know them as a shepherd does his flock. 
 I wish every one could learn the way in 
 which these little growing things take hold 
 of one's interest, and people life in the 
 country, and that this pursuit could be 
 taught to children as a branch of their 
 education. 
 
 The plant- It is the custom in some of our high- 
 *by school** schools for the graduating class to plant a 
 
 and colleges. ^ j n ^ neighborhood of the SChool- 
 
 house and for a long period it has been 
 the time-honored custom of universities 
 to set out a vine in commencement week, 
 to commemorate the class that is leaving 
 college. 
 
 46
 
 Clearing Up 
 
 During a visit last summer to an east- 
 ern town, my attention was called to the 
 Ampelopsis, each vine labeled with the 
 date of the class cut in one of the stones 
 of the foundation of the college chapel, 
 near which the plants were set, and it was 
 melancholy to see how forlorn and small 
 many of them were, and how others had 
 died completely for lack of attention. The 
 same may be said of numbers of the pitiful 
 little Maples and Elms that huddle around 
 the unpicturesque and bare high-school 
 buildings in some parts of New England, 
 which really should by this time be amply 
 shaded if a proper attention had been paid 
 to the young trees when set out. 
 
 It strikes me that a radical change A 
 should be made in the time of planting 
 these commemorative trees and vines. 
 Instead of setting them out at the close 
 of its career, every class should on enter- 
 ing the school or university erect its 
 growing monument, and devote its best 
 energies during the four years of school 
 or college life to having its vine or its tree 
 beat the record in growth and vigor. In 
 this way, if one specimen died another 
 47
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 could be planted, that the class might be 
 sure of a memorial, while yearly a com- 
 mittee should be appointed to attend to 
 the plant, and a small subscription be 
 levied on each member of the class for 
 proper fertilizers and cultivation. 
 Boys should If the personal attention of the boys 
 could be given to the subject, if they 
 wou ld themselves dig about and enrich 
 and prune what they had planted, and 
 would take pride in it, the effect would 
 be good in awakening in their minds an 
 interest in the growth of plants and trees ; 
 and some slight knowledge might be ac- 
 quired of climatic and soil conditions, 
 while a hint might be given to them of 
 one of the best and purest pleasures 
 which is within the grasp of man. 
 
 In this way could be instilled into the 
 rising generation an interest in forestry, 
 that might in time bear fruit in greater 
 care for this property of the nation. 
 Among the books of reference in schools 
 some should be supplied which treat of 
 the proper management of growing things, 
 so that the youths and maidens could 
 study the subject for themselves. If, at 
 48
 
 Clearing Up 
 
 the end of each year or four years, some 
 slight reward, such as a simple medal or 
 even an honorable mention, could be 
 awarded to that plant or tree which had 
 made any surprising growth, it might still 
 further stimulate an interest among the 
 young people in this most beautiful and 
 useful work. If masters of schools and 
 professors of colleges would use their in- 
 fluence to bring about this change as 
 speedily as possible, it could not fail to 
 do good to the youths themselves, and 
 would replace with vigorous trees and 
 vines the usually melancholy specimens 
 which many classes now leave behind 
 them as their monument. 
 
 The forester of ever so minute a wood 
 has a fund of enjoyment on his plantation 
 that no unlimited order to the best of 
 landscape gardeners can ever give him. It 
 is a fine spiritual exercise to bring the mind 
 into sympathy with inferior organisms, 
 and when one has fairly learned to love 
 anything so stubborn and irresponsive as 
 a tree, he has gained a step in mental de- 
 velopment, even beyond that point won 
 49
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 by a sympathetic understanding of his 
 brother man. 
 A flower However fond one may be of a flower 
 
 garden less , T i i < -11 
 
 interesting garden, I doubt if it ever yields quite so 
 ^n of frets, sturdy a satisfaction as the culture of 
 trees. It is the difference between bring- 
 ing up a girl and a boy, one all light, 
 color, sweetness, a thing to be cherished 
 and tenderly sheltered and nurtured ; the 
 other less outwardly winning, more obsti- 
 nate in development, more independent 
 and manly in habit, but more worth while ; 
 a thing of positive pecuniary value when 
 well grown ; and formed, when symmetry 
 and breadth are fully attained, to be of 
 service in sheltering the weak and weary 
 who seek protection in what Mrs. Gamp 
 would call " this wale." 
 5
 
 ON THE PERVERSITY OF 
 CERTAIN TREES
 
 My wind has turned to bitter north, 
 That was so soft a south before ; 
 
 My sky, that shone so sunny bright, 
 With foggy gloom is clouded o'er. 
 
 ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.
 
 V 
 
 |Y conscience would lead me to Apology due 
 
 . . to my trees. 
 
 make an apology to my tree- 
 nurslings for having called them 
 stubborn and irresponsive, when 
 they have in many instances given me so 
 much satisfaction ; but as I feel that it is 
 necessary to be as honest about mistakes 
 as about successes, in order to render these 
 records truly valuable, I feel it my duty 
 though it is almost as bad as betraying a 
 domestic secret to admit that they have 
 been a trial. And that people may not 
 be led away into thinking a tree nursery 
 any freer from failings than a child nurs- 
 ery, I must tell the painful as well as the 
 charming facts about them. 
 
 No one knows better than I how much 
 
 some of the more satisfactory among them **# 
 will do for one under kind treatment, but, tkem ' 
 all the same, I must reluctantly maintain 
 that many of them are freakish and dis- 
 53
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 appointing ; not, perhaps, so much from 
 their inherent wickedness, as from the 
 baneful influences of the world outside, the 
 flirtations with insects of which they are 
 capable, their predilection for ornament- 
 ing themselves with bright colored fungus 
 growths which check their development, 
 a perverseness about living, even when 
 given the very best advantages, only par- 
 alleled by those Chinese servants who 
 go and kill themselves if their master 
 speaks sharply to them ; and, above all, a 
 stubbornness about adapting themselves 
 to new conditions as great as that of a 
 trueborn Briton. 
 A tree the Your tree is the true conservative, and 
 
 true con- ... . . 
 
 servative, will insist upon its own way quite as un- 
 reasonably as a human being, even when 
 you are sure you know what is better for 
 it than it does itself. It is as hard to 
 bring it to a new way of living as it is to 
 bring about a constitutional amendment. 
 If there is a spot where you do not want 
 a tree to grow, notably a garden bed or 
 your potato patch, there it will insist on 
 coming up and making itself at home ; 
 but, take up this interloper and put it in a 
 54
 
 On the Perversity of Certain Trees 
 
 proper place, where you want it, and, ten 
 to one, it will sulk and defy you. 
 
 One's favorites show in extreme youth 
 a propensity to come in contact with cows' 
 horns and the jackknives of mischievous 
 boys, that is another proof of ill-regulated 
 character. They let their top-buds perish 
 in the most careless way, and put out two 
 leaders instead of one before you know it ; 
 they grow unevenly, they make themselves 
 untidy with absurd little leaves up and 
 down their stems, with a vague idea of 
 keeping the sun off their trunks. One 
 has a constant struggle with evergreens to 
 keep their lower limbs in condition ; they 
 always prefer to go barefooted. Indeed, 
 I call one Norway Spruce I know of Sock- 
 less Jerry, on account of this very failing. 
 
 There is a crying instance of depravity 
 in a moderate-sized White Ash on our 
 lawn, which ought to be a stately tree by 
 this time, for a neighbor tells us it has 
 been growing there for forty years. Every 
 spring it puts out a magnificent crop of 
 new shoots, and we congratulate our- 
 selves that at last it has really made up 
 its mind to go ahead and reward us for 
 55
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 all the digging around and high feeding 
 we have given it ; but in late June omi- 
 nous yellow spots appear upon the leaves, 
 great orange-colored excrescences disfig- 
 ure the young shoots, and the first thing 
 we know they are all shriveled and dying, 
 and the ground underneath it is strewn 
 with blackened leaves. Later it pulls it- 
 self together and gets out a feeble crop of 
 young sprouts, just enough to enable it to 
 hold its own from year to year, but which 
 seem to add almost nothing to its girth, 
 and very little to its height. 
 
 Now, can any one tell me what is the 
 proper punishment for that ? 
 
 Of the perversity of Hemlocks I could 
 write a volume. I knew something of 
 their waywardness in the State of Maine, 
 but even in Massachusetts, where every- 
 thing is regulated by law, they show no 
 higher sense of duty. 
 
 In vain do you coax along a beautiful 
 little tree, carefully raised in a nursery 
 till it has a fine ball of roots, to live and 
 thrive for several seasons ; at the end of 
 that time you find it in the spring yellow 
 and brown and bare, with every sign of 
 56
 
 On the Perversity of Certain Trees 
 
 premature decay about it. In a clump 
 they may condescend to grow, or on a hill, 
 but if you don't want a clump, or a hill on 
 the lawn, what then ? 
 
 Any one who has ever set his affections Misconduct 
 on a Peach orchard knows something of trees. . 
 the shameless coquetry of its behavior ; 
 and in the course of these chapters I 
 shall be compelled to record instances of 
 misconduct even in the most innocent and 
 carefully brought up trees as well as in 
 the wild and unsophisticated ones. Even 
 the common White Birch, which will live 
 anywhere and everywhere, and thrive on 
 a sandbank, goes and gets itself eaten up 
 with rosebugs the minute we try to uti- 
 lize it on a lawn. Lombardy Poplars, too, 
 in spite of much specious promising, be- 
 have shamefully; and I have known a 
 Catalpa to grow undaunted in an inclo- 
 sure for twenty years and then succumb in 
 a cowardly way to one cold winter. The 
 fact is, though I am loath to say it, as a 
 class you cannot absolutely depend upon 
 trees, and when you say that why, you 
 say everything ! 
 
 I have also something to add concern- 
 57
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 Concerning ing our grove of Chestnut-trees, that were 
 cAestnuts. taken from a plantation of trees in our 
 neighborhood, which had been made some 
 years ago, on one of the neglected places 
 hereabout. They had been set out when 
 small, and left to take their chances with- 
 out cultivation for certainly ten years. 
 How much they had received when very 
 young I cannot say, for their gardener has 
 long since moved away. When we got 
 them they were some three inches in di- 
 ameter one foot from the ground, and 
 slim and stately, with fairly good roots, 
 but not like those of frequently moved 
 nursery trees. We topped them when 
 they were set in the autumn, and as they 
 did not seem very vigorous, the next year 
 we cut them back very severely, of differ- 
 ent lengths, as an experiment. Some of 
 them we left ten feet high, and one of 
 them which had poor roots and looked 
 sickly we cut down to within two feet of 
 the ground. 
 
 Last summer they all put out vigorous 
 
 tops with enormous leaves, but they are 
 
 much beset by the aphis, which makes 
 
 havoc with the first growth, and later by 
 
 53
 
 On the Perversity of Certain Trees 
 
 the insatiable rosechafer ; yet, in spite of 
 these drawbacks, they thrive in the rich 
 deep soil of the swale, sheltered by the 
 hill from the sun and the burning south- 
 west winds. They are planted about fif- 
 teen feet apart, as we thought they would 
 do better in close company, and they can 
 be trimmed out when they are larger if it 
 seems desirable. Smaller ones are set on 
 the hillside, where they seem to flourish, 
 and some future generation may see our 
 hillside, like those noble slopes of the 
 Connecticut valley, waving with their 
 splendid foliage. 
 
 But all these trees give us care and information 
 trouble, and much disappointment, like fate. 
 everything on which one's heart is set, 
 and then we are always finding out things 
 just too late, for we constantly discover in 
 our reading articles published the day 
 after the fair, which show us how much 
 better we might have done had we had 
 the information a year or two earlier. In 
 fact we have reason to think ourselves 
 among those 
 
 Mountainous minds that were awake too soon, 
 Or else their brethren slept too late, 
 
 59
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 for no sooner do we evolve an idea and 
 put it in practice, than at every turn the 
 public press is crammed with views on this 
 very subject which it has never seen fit 
 to express previously. Hinc ilia lacrimce. 
 Knowledge Had all thatwe discovered later in print 
 
 woif Id have , i > 
 
 induced dis- been within our grasp in the beginning, 
 had modern ideas been fairly abroad, how 
 much easier everything would have been ! 
 But, also, how afraid we should have been 
 to undertake anything, having learned 
 thus that we ought never to build without 
 a landscape architect, never to plant with- 
 out the advice of an experienced land- 
 scape gardener, never to suffer from mis- 
 takes that could so easily be avoided by 
 proper appeals to a professional ! But all 
 this wisdom might as well have come in 
 the next century as just a year too late, 
 and so here we are, with all our blood 
 upon our heads, because we chanced to 
 dig our cellar and make our contract a 
 year or two before a certain eminent den- 
 drological journal was born. 
 
 Gifts from As it was, we went to some scientific 
 f'ritnds. neighbors, who had done the same thing 
 we were doing thirty years before with 
 60
 
 On the Perversity of Certain Trees 
 
 very distinguished success ; and some of 
 them gave us advice, and others gave us 
 trees, which were even more to the pur- 
 pose; and they kindly encouraged our 
 efforts, and took an interest in what we 
 were doing that sustained and cheered us 
 on our way. 
 
 No one's experience, either in books or we try our 
 in real life, proves to be exactly like our ' 
 own, so that we feel that we have had the 
 benefit of an original experiment. Only 
 time can fully reveal where our mistakes 
 lie, for it alone can show whether we have 
 planted not wisely or too well. 
 61
 
 VI 
 
 THE WRECK OF AN ANCIENT 
 GARDEN
 
 A brave old house ! a garden full of bees, 
 Large dropping poppies, and queen holly- 
 hocks, 
 
 With butterflies for crowns, tree peonies, 
 And pinks and goldilocks. 
 
 JEAN INGELOW.
 
 VI 
 
 EXT to our tree garden came A wonder- 
 the old-fashioned flower garden 
 as an object of care and inter- 
 est in the renovation of the 
 place, and here we met with many agree- 
 able surprises ; so that we were perpetu- 
 ally reminded of the " Swiss Family Rob- 
 inson," who, when they went ashore on 
 their desert island, found all they needed 
 to make them comfortable on the wreck, 
 from which, luckily, they were able to 
 help themselves before the old hulk went 
 to pieces. After that, every little thing 
 which was quite indispensable came out 
 of a wonderful bag that belonged to the 
 worthy mother. 
 
 Since we landed upon the barren waste 
 of this abandoned farm, we have often had 
 reason to compare the old house-lot with 
 the ship, and the front yard with the moth- 
 er's bag, for a number of trees and shrubs 
 65
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 have been forthcoming from the one, 
 while the other has proved an inexhausti- 
 ble resource, not only for our own, but 
 other people's gardens. 
 
 M , is db e - tsy * r r ' once u P on a ti me > i n the ld house 
 Peggy. which is now no more, there dwelt two 
 dear old ladies who took great pride in 
 their garden, and stocked it well with all 
 the best flowers of their day, and from it 
 came bulbs and cuttings of roses, and 
 roots of perennials, that still help to make 
 beautiful the ancient gardens of this fine 
 old town. They were women of refine- 
 ment and learning, much respected and 
 beloved, and the older people still warmly 
 recall Miss Betsy and Miss Peggy, and 
 the days when the old house was always 
 a sunny and cheerful resort. After the 
 place was abandoned and unoccupied for 
 many years, people felt at liberty to come 
 and help themselves to slips of the shrubs 
 and to roots of the old plants, so that one 
 might hardly hope to find anything of 
 value still existing there ; but when we 
 came to clear away the rubbish, we were 
 surprised to find what a tenacious hold 
 the occupants had of the soil, so that, as 
 66
 
 The Wreck of an Ancient Garden 
 
 the spring and summer months sped by, 
 we were constantly surprised and charmed 
 to find, in unexpected places, some shrub 
 or flower that clung to its old haunts, and, 
 half-hidden from the eye, bloomed away 
 its sweet life heedless of observers. 
 
 Along an uneven old wall that had sup- Miss Betsy's 
 ported the terrace of the house, I had a 
 bed dug, into which I transplanted such 
 bulbs and roots as would consent to be 
 torn from their original homes. This bed 
 I call Miss Betsy's Garden, for I am quite 
 sure that in old times that gentle soul 
 must have watched and tended her favo- 
 rites by this same sunny wall. There is 
 one prim little Columbine which wears a 
 minutely fluted lavender cap that I associ- 
 ate with her, and always call by her name. 
 The flowers that come up in Miss Betsy's 
 Garden are all simple and homely, but to 
 me their quaint familiar faces are more 
 appealing than the far showier and splen- 
 did blooms of to-day. 
 
 They must have family records of inter- Some high- 
 est, these ladylike old blossoms. Those blossoms. 
 yellow Daffodils, with their long green 
 ribbons, have nestled up against that wall 
 67
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 till, no doubt, they regard it as an ancient 
 castle, of which they are the chatelaines ; 
 and I am sure that dignified Narcissus 
 must have a history. There is a sweet 
 
 A fragrant June Honeysuckle straggling there which 
 breathes an old-time fragrance, and the 
 tiny petals of the pale pink Bridal Rose 
 which flutters beside it have the very tint 
 of soft color one sees in the cheek of an 
 ancient maiden. A wild Clematis seems to 
 grow out of the wall itself, I have never 
 been able to find its root, and every 
 fall a Prince's-feather waves its tall plume 
 where once it danced with a Lady's-slip- 
 per. The Pansies have all degenerated 
 into Lady's-delights, and the Hollyhocks 
 come up single, but here they grow and 
 blossom beside a pendulous Forsythia, 
 the seed of which was, no doubt, sown by 
 some passing bird, for it is not, I think, 
 one of the older shrubs in this village. 
 
 Fimuersin The rest of the garden is perfectly 
 formless and wild. Nothing has been 
 done to the old part of the farm, except to 
 clean away the weeds and sticks that en- 
 cumbered it, and the old plants have grown 
 lank and tall along the fence and under 
 68
 
 The Wreck of an Ancient Garden 
 
 
 
 the heavy shade of the trees. But here 
 in the spring the ground is blue and fra- 
 grant with hardy English Violets, that fill sweet 
 the air with perfume and blossom long vwlets - 
 before even the native White Violet, which 
 leads the way among our New England 
 flowers ; and wherever you walk you come 
 upon a Tulip, or a Star of Bethlehem, or 
 a feeble Crocus choked by the strong 
 grasses, and cheery Daffys are wagging 
 their golden heads in sheltered spots, and 
 later there are to be seen groups of sculptu- 
 resque Narcissus shining whitely under the 
 shrubbery, " like a good deed in a naughty 
 world." The Flowering Almond sends 
 up spikes of bloom ; the Periwinkle, white 
 and blue, hides among its shining leaves, 
 while the Moneywort has strayed away 
 from the garden and made of itself a nui- 
 sance in the orchard, where it threatens 
 to root out everything else. There also 
 are great clumps of the giant Solomon's 
 Seal in shady nooks, where they grow to 
 wondrous size. 
 
 And the Flower o' the Quince is a rare shrubs 
 sight in the springtime, as its rosy flush 
 mantles the scraggy old trees which are 
 69
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 good for little but blossoms. There is a 
 huge Viburnum bush in the orchard which 
 is a snowy mass in May, when the Snow- 
 berry buds are showing their little pink 
 heads against the fence, where they strug- 
 gle with the wild Raspberry bushes which 
 make their life burdensome to them ; and 
 in places through the grass, where once a 
 well kept Strawberry patch existed, are to 
 be found the white blossoms of a few sur- 
 vivors mightier than their conquerors. 
 A dump of In a low, neglected spot is a clump of 
 those old orange-colored Lilies that used 
 always to abound in country gardens, for 
 once established they could never be 
 rooted out ; and these, undiscouraged by 
 frequent mowings, bloom and spread in 
 unchecked luxuriance. 
 
 There are Lilacs, purple, white and Per- 
 sian, in profusion, and the Mock Orange 
 and Spirasas all have their turn as the 
 seasons go round. One White Lilac has 
 shot up to the height of a two-story house, 
 and now that the windows are no longer 
 there to help one to gather them, it shows, 
 when in bloom, a crown of inaccessible 
 blossoms; others yield their wealth of 
 70
 
 The Wreck of an Ancient Garden 
 
 flowers nearer at hand, and by the well 
 a Persian Lilac drops like a fountain with 
 rosy jets. 
 No longer supported by the fallen house, Roses of ye 
 
 ... .. , , olden time. 
 
 a Trumpet Creeper, which trailed along 
 the ground, has been clipped into a com- 
 pact bush. A venerable Althaea, which 
 we did our best to save, blossomed feebly 
 for a season or two and then perished, de- 
 prived of the accustomed shelter of the 
 porch ; but great bushes of the old-fash- 
 ioned White Rose abound, and there, too, 
 is the sweet Blush Rose, beloved of the 
 bee and the sturdy Hessian. A large 
 Damask Rose still flourishes under the 
 Lilacs, and a luxuriant Baltimore Belle 
 climbs in reckless profusion over its con- 
 fining wires. Where the fence stood is a 
 low cluster of bushes covered in summer 
 with a bold Red Rose, single and splendid, 
 the remote parent, perhaps, of the Jacque- 
 minot ; they call it here the Russian Rose, 
 but I do not know what its real name 
 may be ; and down in the orchard I found 
 a bush of the dear, thorny little Scotch 
 Rose, the smell of which is laden, as is no 
 other, with the memories of childhood. 
 7 1
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 Homely There are clumps of Tiger Lilies, and 
 
 old-fashioned small Bluebells, and Sweet 
 Williams, and a Barberry bush swings its 
 yellow blossoms and red berries over the 
 rear wall ; and under the Box-arbor I found 
 Spiderwort growing in great clusters. 
 
 One day, while strolling down along the 
 orchard fence, a familiar odor, heavy and 
 sweet, led me on to where a wild Aza- 
 lea was hanging out its fragrant blos- 
 soms. I do not see why a hedge of these 
 might not do well in this moist soil. I 
 hailed this one with delight as an orna- 
 ment to the place. 
 
 An aged g u t what we like best is the fine old 
 
 Box arbor. 
 
 Box arbor, which has grown up from a 
 garden border until its stout trees are now 
 six inches in diameter, and nearly ten 
 feet high, which shows their great age. 
 They were fair-sized bushes when old men 
 of this town were boys, and to make even 
 a bush of a Box plant is slow work. Here, 
 shaded by a young Elm which has sprung 
 up in the kindly shelter of these twisted 
 old trunks, we sit and look out upon the 
 meadow and the growing plants, and feel 
 72
 
 The Wreck of an Ancient Garden 
 linked with the past by this memento of Memento of 
 
 the 6ast< 
 
 those who loved this garden spot, and 
 toiled to make it fair and fruitful, even as 
 we, too, toil to restore its beauty and pro- 
 ductiveness. 
 
 73
 
 VII 
 
 A NEW PERENNIAL GARDEN
 
 Pluck the primroses ; pluck the violets ; 
 Pluck the daisies, 
 Sing their praises ; 
 
 Friendship with the flowers some noble thought 
 begets. 
 
 EDWARD YOUL.
 
 VII 
 
 [HOUGH the old garden has a it 
 quaint attraction from its very S ma 
 antiquity, the effort to make its ^ 
 successor the subject of a chap- 
 ter reminds me of the remark of a literary 
 man, who paid his only visit to Scotland 
 in the winter-time, that he realized more 
 fully than ever before how great was the 
 genius of Sir Walter Scott, which had 
 given world-renown for picturesqueness to 
 those low, round, bare, uninteresting hills, 
 the Trossachs. Lacking that genius, I 
 am somewhat dismayed at telling the 
 story of my very unimportant little gar- 
 den. Our late, cold springs render it 
 rather a dreary object of contemplation 
 even in the month of May, and with only 
 the power of words to help the reader's 
 enjoyment, I shall have to ask indulgence 
 for the meagre record of its very simple 
 charms. 
 
 77
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 f t ^ r " A Mrs> Carl y le used to tel1 a stor y of an 
 
 Irish prison that was to be built out of 
 the stones of an old one, while the prison- 
 ers were to be kept in the old jail until 
 the new one was completed. This tale 
 suggests our fashion of constructing a 
 new garden out of the former one, and 
 in our case the prisoners showed a de- 
 cided preference for the original institu- 
 tion, and were with great difficulty per- 
 suaded to leave it. We started out 
 with no very definite plan beyond killing 
 two birds with one stone, always a desir- 
 able object when one is short-handed, 
 and the results are not particularly im- 
 pressive. 
 
 A garden While the house at Overlea was build- 
 ing, the carpenters kept their tools in a 
 part of the old dwelling that was still 
 standing, and their constant journeys to 
 and fro, between the knoll and the work- 
 shop, wore a narrow winding path, along 
 which we had a flower-bed dug, to put 
 such roots in as we wished to bring with 
 us from the rented place that we were oc- 
 cupying, and also to serve as a home for 
 such plants as we might dig up about the 
 78
 
 A New Perennial Garden 
 
 farm. Some sprigs of Box, broken from 
 the arbor, and set in the soil at the edge 
 of the bed, took root and made a rough 
 border, and here, in August, I trans- 
 planted Lily bulbs, and a little later put 
 in such perennials as needed to be set out 
 in the fall. 
 
 Between this flower-bed and the street Some old 
 
 , - ,. i j T> Pear-trees. 
 
 were three rows of straggling old Pear- 
 trees that gave some suggestion of possi- 
 ble fruitfulness, though it seemed likely 
 that they were too old to profit by prun- 
 ing. They had been famous in their day, 
 and still preserved the remnants of a repu- 
 tation, though more modern varieties have 
 borne away the palm in newer gardens. 
 But Bartletts and Sheldons and Seckels 
 will never be out of date, and there are 
 others, the very names of which the old 
 settlers have forgotten, which still yield 
 sweet and luscious fruit, when the weather 
 and the insects permit. Half dead they 
 seemed when we first went to work at 
 them, cutting away the dead branches and 
 scraping their mossy trunks, to the infinite 
 disturbance of the insects which had clus- 
 tered there for warmth, and we recognized 
 79
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 A box of 
 plants. 
 
 that only strong methods would revive 
 them. 
 
 We needed sods for the terraces we 
 were making, and so began by removing 
 the turf around the trees, leaving narrow 
 strips of grass to walk upon. This fur- 
 nished us with three wide beds, which we 
 fertilized heavily with rich compost and 
 wood-ashes, the surface being tilled with 
 great care, keeping the edge of the spade 
 turned toward the trunk to avoid cutting 
 off the rootlets of the trees. A memory 
 of an old garden in which I had played 
 when a child, where Pear-trees grew 
 among the flowers, induced me to think 
 of utilizing these broad fertile spaces for 
 perennials. The Pear-trees were at that 
 time doubtful as fruit-producers, but they 
 would afford a grateful shelter from the 
 hot sun when we were working among the 
 plants, and their sparse foliage would 
 hardly interfere greatly with the flowers. 
 
 In the spring a generous friend sent me 
 a box of hardy plants, which were set out 
 at random, as they came without labels, 
 and many of them were unfamiliar to me. 
 I do not find that they interfere much 
 80
 
 A New Perennial Garden 
 
 with the Pear-trees, which, under this 
 steady cultivation, yield more of their fine 
 old-fashioned fruit than we know what to 
 do with, for pears are a drug in this mar- 
 ket and can hardly be given away. The 
 Pear-trees certainly do not hinder the 
 growth of the sturdy perennials, which 
 multiply enormously, so that every spring 
 and fall there are quantities of them to be 
 shared with friends. A nurseryman, who 
 came last year to set some Strawberry- 
 plants, declared that, if properly divided, 
 there were roots enough there to stock an 
 acre. 
 
 Such strong, showy plants as the Iris, They thrive. 
 the Foxglove, and the Giant Evening 
 Primrose flourish admirably, while Phlox 
 and Hollyhocks and Columbines and Spi- 
 raeas encumber the ground. 
 
 There is a huge Oriental Poppy that is 
 a gorgeous spectacle, with its rich blue- 
 green velvet robes and its silken headgear 
 of scarlet and black, producing all alone 
 the effect of a procession, as Bret Harte 
 once said of Roscoe Conkling. 
 
 Smaller Poppies come up of their own 
 accord, some single, some double, as the 
 81
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 The things fancy takes them, and there is a wild ar- 
 t fa gunk*. ra 7 f Larkspurs and Coreopsis and 
 Sweet Williams all summer. In the 
 spring the variegated Thyme comes up 
 promptly, followed closely by English 
 Daisies and Moss Pinks, and Pansies and 
 Violets, white, blue and yellow. The 
 Giant Solomon's Seal rings its green bells 
 over the heads of the tiny Bellwort ; and 
 all summer the Lilies and Peonies and 
 Spiderworts fight for possession of the 
 ground, while the perennial Peas, and 
 Calendulas and Marigolds linger there till 
 the last frost-horn blows. 
 
 The collection is not very choice, and, 
 beyond a periodical struggle with the 
 weeds, which try to grow as rampantly as 
 the flowers, it gets not very much atten- 
 tion ; but it makes a fine show from the 
 street, and from the veranda which looks 
 down upon it. Any minute effects would 
 be wasted here, and we do not extend its 
 area, which we might readily do, because 
 it already requires more attention than we 
 are willing to spare from the shrubs and 
 trees that we are hurrying along upon the 
 lawn, and which, consequently, take all 
 82
 
 A New Perennial Garden 
 
 our best energies, as well as the lion's 
 share of food. In short, the flower-garden 
 takes what it can get, copes more or less 
 successfully with its own weeds, and pos- 
 sibly is more satisfactory than if we took 
 more pains with it, and so were liable to 
 disappointments. It is not at all well 
 adapted to annuals, even Mignonettes 
 and Asters, which are sown every year, 
 for the stronger plants rob them of their 
 proper nutriment ; but I have future plans 
 for a parterre in that neighborhood, which 
 shall have fitting accommodation for all 
 the sweet old-fashioned kinds of yearly 
 flowers. 
 
 Supplemented by the old garden, the A nosegay 
 new will even now at any season afford a IZdfore 
 fragrant and showy nosegay, such as our 
 grandmothers liked for a beaupot, and 
 there is always a mass of color under the 
 Pear-trees until late in November, when 
 the cold pinches the very last Calendula. 
 The neighborhood of the salt water makes 
 this garden cold, and slow to awake in 
 spring ; but, on the other hand, it modifies 
 the temperature in the autumn, so that it 
 escapes the early frosts, and, under the 
 83
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 shelter of the trees, the flowers last long 
 after those upon the high ground about 
 the house have withered and fallen. 
 A warm There is a sheltered corner, backed by 
 
 a mass of Lilacs and Mock Oranges, where 
 I dream of seeing some day a fine clump 
 of Rhododendrons and hardy Azaleas, 
 though I have some doubts about a south- 
 ern exposure being the very best thing for 
 them ; but the decorative effect from the 
 house will be so good that we are disposed 
 to make the attempt. Skirting the old 
 wall to the right of this, we come to the 
 ancient Apple and Pear trees which are 
 the remains of the once valuable orchard, 
 that at one time covered a large part of 
 the place. 
 
 84
 
 VIII 
 A VENERABLE ORCHARD
 
 O blessed shades ! O gentle cool retreat 
 
 From all the immoderate heat, 
 In which the frantic world does burn and sweat ! 
 ABRAHAM COWLEY, 
 
 'Neath cloistered boughs, each floral bell that 
 
 swingeth, 
 
 And tolls its perfume on the passing air, 
 
 Makes sabbath in the fields, and ever ringeth 
 
 A call to prayer. 
 
 HORACE SMITH.
 
 VIII 
 
 HE whole farm at Overlea might The orchard 
 well be called an orchard, for /%'^ the 
 it abounds in Apple and Pear 
 trees, which are scattered about 
 it, from the point at the north to the foot 
 of the hill on the south. 
 
 Tall, fuzzy old settlers they are, with 
 mossy trunks and gaunt branches ; but, 
 like the ancient New England human 
 stock, they die game, and are useful to 
 the end. The weather-beaten old Seckels, 
 which look perfectly hopeless, still produce 
 stout, brown, rosy little pears, as sweet as 
 honey, if not much bigger than an over- 
 grown bumble-bee, and the venerable 
 Bartletts, which we threaten every year to 
 cut down, because they look so shabby 
 and disreputable in their torn and mossy 
 old jackets, put off the evil day by molli- 
 fying us every September with a crop, 
 87
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 which, though not large, still serves to 
 purchase them a reprieve. 
 
 Methuselah One of the conspicuous ornaments of 
 \ree. "" the level space below the northern ter- 
 race of the house is an old Pear-tree we 
 call Methuselah, which was transplanted 
 in 1779, and, in spite of its great age, still 
 bears a profusion of hard, sweet pears, 
 which the housewives consider excellent 
 for coddling, or preserving with barberries. 
 This ancient and honorable old continen- 
 tal, which stands some fifty feet in its 
 stockings, girths ten feet and three inches 
 a foot from the ground, and has a coat so 
 beautifully wrinkled and seamed with age, 
 that our artist friend tells us a Japanese 
 would beg a bit of the bark for a curio, 
 and exhibit it as a precious and artistic 
 possession. In the spring its venerable 
 poll is snowy with blossoms, and though 
 its great trunk is quite hollow within, the 
 six huge branches into which it separates 
 near the base spread wide and strong, and 
 send out from their broken tops vigorous 
 young shoots, on which the fruit grows 
 profusely. 
 
 We suppose this to be the original well 
 88
 
 A Venerable Orchard 
 
 known Gushing Pear-tree, as this farm 
 was a part of the colonial grant to Mat- 
 thew Gushing in 1634, and was the Stamm- 
 haus of that widespread race, which held 
 the property in the Gushing name for two 
 hundred and forty years, the land having 
 descended by will from one to another, 
 so that we hold the first deed, and paid the 
 first money that was ever given for it. 
 
 The Apple orchard proper, which is in The Apple 
 the shape of a flat-iron, lies in the point 
 of the place, which is quite filled by three 
 or four enormous old trees, which have 
 grown to a great height, and had, when 
 we came, immense branches that arched 
 over and almost swept the ground, their 
 huge mounds of rosy bloom in spring 
 making a wondrous sight. 
 
 Since then, with a vague idea of improv- 
 ing them, though some of the wise ones 
 tell us it is a mistake to meddle with such 
 old trees, we have had them pruned, that 
 the sun might shine more directly upon 
 the apples, which failed to color properly 
 in the dense shade. Also, the ground 
 beneath them has been plowed, to the 
 great detriment of their small roots, which, 
 89
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 owing to the marshy ground below, lie 
 very near the surface. 
 
 Last year was not their bearing year, 
 and not until this autumn could we tell the 
 effect of this surgery, which seems to have 
 had fairly good results, for the yield was 
 satisfactory though not large. The plow- 
 ing was not done so much for the trees as 
 for the grass, which had been fairly driven 
 out by the encroachments of the Money- 
 wort, which has escaped from the garden 
 and runs riot over the place ; and the prun- 
 ing was as necessary for the hay-crop as for 
 the fruit, for the great Elm hard by helps 
 to shade all that part of the grounds, and 
 even now the grass, when cut, has to be 
 transported into the open to be cured. 
 oid Apple- The year we took possession, three 
 trees at this point a Baldwin, a Rhode 
 Island Greening and a Russet furnished 
 us with about a dozen barrels of apples. 
 In addition, there are in other parts of the 
 place more old-fashioned trees, like the 
 Seek-no-Further and Early Sweet, that are 
 extremely useful, and fairly productive in 
 spite of their years and infirmities. One 
 of the latter trees is quite a curiosity, for 
 90
 
 A Venerable Orchard 
 
 half of it is wholly denuded of bark, as if 
 it had been struck by lightning, and the 
 trunk is perfectly hollow, but the grafted 
 stem still sends out very strong and 
 healthy-looking shoots, that yield an abun- 
 dance of fine rosy-cheeked fruit every 
 other year. 
 
 The canker-worm has meddled very lit- 
 tle with these trees, but the web-caterpil- 
 lar has to be waged constant war upon, 
 both in spring and fall, and the last two 
 summers, owing to the preceding mild 
 winter, this pest was particularly active 
 and ubiquitous. 
 
 A row of Plum-trees against the east 
 foundation-wall of the old house, which 
 still stands, and makes a good shelter for 
 our Raspberry bushes, seem as if they 
 would do well if we could only cope suc- 
 cessfully with the murderous black knot, 
 with which we found them perfectly cov- 
 ered. In 1889 all the diseased portions 
 were cut away, and since then they have 
 sent out a quantity of tall, healthy branches, 
 but no blossoms, from their closely polled 
 stems ; we purpose next spring to try the 
 effect of salt bags in the crotches of the
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 limbs, which, we have been told, is a suc- 
 cessful way of keeping off the curculio. 
 But from what we read of the necessary 
 efforts to get rid of this pest, we fear that 
 the plums would hardly be worth the trou- 
 ble, for it seems as if nothing less than a 
 Salvation Army would suffice to combat 
 this persistent beetle sinner. 
 
 In our orchard are Iron Pears of the 
 good old kind that would serve for ammu- 
 nition in a field piece in case of war, and 
 some rickety-looking Lawrences, that bear 
 excellent fruit in generous quantities ; and 
 there is a picturesque Crab-apple tree 
 which grows quite too near the great Elm 
 to furnish any decent fruit, though it does 
 its best, and strews the ground beneath it 
 with its stony red and yellow apples. The 
 old Cherry-trees were too worthless, so we 
 cut them down. We have but few Peach- 
 trees, though we are told they would thrive 
 against the hill, as they like a northern 
 exposure. We are now preparing to plant 
 a fresh Apple orchard, which ought to be 
 ready to bear by the time the old trees 
 quite give out, and we are grateful for 
 suggestions as to the best kinds for domes- 
 92
 
 A Venerable Orchard 
 
 tic uses, and eager to know whether the 
 trees will be more likely to thrive in the 
 moist or in the dry part of the grounds. 
 
 But there is a charm about this unpro- charm of 
 ductive old orchard, with its wilderness of *** orchard - 
 venerable shrubs along the fence, that no 
 thrifty modern row of fruitful trees will 
 ever possess. As one sits there in the 
 shade on a sunny day, with the white pet- 
 als drifting down from their lofty boughs, 
 there is a murmur of bees among the foli- 
 age, of robins chattering among the twigs, 
 a rustle of leaves and flowers in the gentle 
 breeze, that seems the essence of the many 
 summers gone that have helped to swell 
 their great boles, and to increase their 
 majestic height. From under the arch of 
 branches the green meadow is visible, with 
 wooded hills rising from its margin, among 
 which nestle cottages, white and red, with 
 the faint smoke curling lazily from their 
 chimneys, up to the blue sky flecked with 
 round white clouds. How many years the 
 old trees have looked out upon the quiet 
 meadow, and for how many generations 
 have they dropped their rosy fruit ! 
 
 In this new country of ours we yearn 
 93
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 OldHing- 
 
 ham. 
 
 A Memory 
 of Lincoln- 
 shire. 
 
 for stability, for tradition, for something 
 to link us with that past which goes back 
 so little way behind us here. Perhaps the 
 grafts on these mossy limbs were brought 
 from England by the early settlers who peo- 
 pled the old colony. Under their shade the 
 sturdy Puritan has leaned upon his spade 
 and remembered the orchards of his native 
 land, which he was never to see again ; 
 and now, as the vision grows before our 
 dreaming eyes, we climb the ladder of the 
 past, and are again in Lincolnshire, and 
 the choir-boys are chanting softly in the 
 distance, and the bells are ringing from St. 
 Andrew's Church, of the other Hingham, 
 the gray towers of which we see afar off, 
 instead of the quaint spire of our old 
 meeting-house, whose tenscore years of 
 life seem so little in the older world, where 
 they reckon time by centuries instead of 
 decades. 
 
 We see the wide green fens, and the 
 fallow fields besprinkled with grazing 
 herds, the rich meadows where the lush 
 grass grows, and where great crops repay 
 the farmers easy labor ; the wolds with 
 their chalk-hills, the thrifty hamlets, the 
 94
 
 A Venerable Orchard 
 
 sluggish rivers creeping to the sea, the 
 Humber with old Hull at its mouth, the *th?Tidor 
 broad bay of the Wash, overlooked by cltard ' 
 English Boston, the level pastures by the 
 swift-flowing Lindis, where the great tide 
 came in. The bells from the great towers 
 are ringing, is that the " Brides of En- 
 derby " we hear ? and so we wander in 
 a dream of the far past, till the boom of 
 the bells resolves itself suddenly into the 
 humming of bees, the venerable towers 
 vanish in the shaggy trunks around us, 
 and we are awake once more, under the 
 bending boughs of the old orchard, with 
 only a robin for a chorister. 
 
 95
 
 IX 
 
 STRUGGLE WITH THE WEB- 
 WORM
 
 Devoured by worms, like Herod, was the town. 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Nine hundred thousand reptiles blue. 
 
 H. BENNETT.
 
 IX 
 
 |T is a delightful thing to own an The viiiai 
 orchard, but it is a blessing not 
 to be enjoyed without fighting 
 for it, since among the difficul- 
 ties of reclaiming a place, one cannot ig- 
 nore the necessary hand-to-hand conflict 
 with the various animal and vegetable en- 
 emies which lie in wait to destroy plants 
 and trees. Eternal vigilance is the price 
 of vegetation as well as of liberty, and the 
 cultivator who dreams that he can for a 
 moment take his ease in his inn, reckons 
 without his guests of the insect-world, 
 who take short naps, and require as much 
 nourishment as Falstaff. I shall have 
 more to say upon this subject at a later 
 date, but the Apple-trees remind me of 
 conflicts with the web-worm, and I find a 
 treatise upon his manners and customs 
 apropos. As an example of pertinacity, 
 Bruce's spider beside him pales her inef- 
 99
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 fectual fires ; as an evidence of the apa- 
 thetic stupidity of man he is unrivaled, 
 and as a menace of future untold horrors 
 he may well be used to point a moral of 
 gruesome interest. 
 
 Some philosopher has said that " the 
 rea l en d of the world will come when man 
 ceases to be able to cope with the insects." 
 When his time comes the worm is the mas- 
 ter of us all, but there is no reason while 
 we are yet stirring about this earthly ball, 
 that we need submit to be devoured by him 
 before our day. And yet, when you come 
 to think of it, that is what the brute is 
 after. Too cowardly to attack man openly, 
 he begins by eating up his provender. 
 Man, being on the whole an easy-going 
 animal, at first pays not much attention ; 
 but he only multiplies moderately, and 
 the insect enormously. Where a man will 
 leave a half dozen descendants in a life- 
 time, a worm will leave one hundred and 
 twenty-five thousand in a season ; judge 
 then if this can be allowed to go on in- 
 definitely, and man survive ! 
 
 Where the inane apathy of the human 
 being comes in, is in not crushing his 
 100
 
 A Struggle wit]) the Web-worm 
 
 enemy while yet insignificant ; forever 
 penny wise and pound foolish, man tole- 
 rates a moderate evil until it becomes in- 
 ordinate, and then wastes a fortune which 
 might well have been saved, in doing in- 
 effectual battle with his foe. It is the 
 fable of Epimetheus forever renewed, and 
 the appeal I would now make is to have 
 this Pandora's box closed before the rest 
 of the web- worms escape to plague the 
 world, and help make an end of the race. 
 It is idle to scoff at this idea as that 
 of an alarmist. A few years ago the 
 spring web-worm was an unimportant 
 factor in our orchards. The fall worm 
 gave some trouble, but he was not impos- 
 sible to cope with. Now, not only do 
 we have to fight for every apple we pos- 
 sess in the autumn, but all through the 
 months of April and May, when work 
 presses, when every moment is precious, 
 it takes not only all the hands on a 
 farm to fight caterpillars, but also all the 
 eyes of the family to detect their lurking- 
 places ; and this not as one job, but as a 
 perpetually recurring duty for weeks at a 
 time, and all on account of the crying neg- 
 101
 
 Tbe Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 lect by land-owners of their premises, and 
 
 by town authorities of the webs on their 
 
 Webs on the own highways, which have been allowed 
 
 high-road. 
 
 to accumulate, until the country roads 
 have lost their beauty, lined as they are 
 with trees shrouded from root to summit 
 in ghostly webs, under which myriads of 
 loathsome black worms writhe and crawl, 
 and eat their fill, to the shuddering dis- 
 gust of the wayfarer. 
 
 Far and near, not only are the Wild 
 Cherry trees, already infested with the 
 odious black knot, left to spread a second 
 plague among the fruit-trees, but whole 
 orchards are allowed to bear unmolested 
 swarms of caterpillars, their owners pre- 
 ferring to sacrifice their apples rather 
 than take the trouble to clean their trees 
 of the webs. 
 
 Since the State of Massachusetts has 
 taken the Gypsy Moth in hand, why should 
 worms. wn not communities take charge of their own 
 worms, and enforce the destruction of the 
 webs by each land-owner, under penalty 
 of a fine, while the street commissioners 
 be made to attend to the trees bordering 
 the highway ?
 
 A Struggle with the Web-worm 
 
 The farmers who neglect this rapidly 
 increasing nuisance seem to me like the t 
 Turk who sits under a crumbling wall, 
 murmuring, " God is great ! if it falls it 
 falls ! " and takes no pains to get out of 
 the way. 
 
 So far as our own little farm is con- Hmvth 
 cerned, some tall Wild Cherry trees that we Jwght 
 depend on for a screen give us timely no- 
 tice of the arrival of the pest, and bring us 
 all out promptly to do battle. The worms 
 are fought with fire on the end of a pole, 
 with a tall clipping knife, and with a wire 
 brush attached to the end of a long bam- 
 boo rod, which reaches to the very top of 
 the tallest trees, where, being judiciously 
 twisted, it brings down a crop of crawlers 
 for more positive destruction below. The 
 clipping is the most thorough method, for, 
 if done late in the evening, the nest, with 
 all its occupants, can be secured and its 
 contents burned or trampled to death. In 
 this way all the insects can be destroyed, 
 but, of course, it is only possible where 
 the web is on the end of a small branch. 
 Where it lies in the great crotches, the 
 torch or the wire brush must be applied ; 
 103
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 but the former lets some escape, and I am 
 told that when the nests are burned, the 
 fire shrivels the outside of the crawling 
 mass, which falls with the web to the 
 ground, but the caterpillars in the heart 
 of the living ball escape, to crawl up the 
 tree again and start afresh upon their 
 depredations. 
 The worm It is of no use to think that you have 
 
 has come to . . . , .. 
 
 stay. accomplished your purpose because, after 
 
 heroic labor, there seems not a vestige of 
 a nest remaining. No sooner do you feel 
 that you have routed the last encampment 
 of the enemy than, presto ! his tents are 
 once more like those of the Assyrian for 
 multitude, and in a day or two you must 
 resume your round to find the enemy big- 
 ger and brisker than ever. About three 
 months of the season have to be given up 
 to the two campaigns, spring and fall, till 
 finally a person of imagination begins to 
 feel that the philosopher's prediction is 
 about to be fulfilled, and that the worm 
 has come to stay. 
 
 " Of what use are the Cherry-trees ? " 
 say the wise ; " the worm, after all, is not 
 so bad as the black knot, and compared 
 104
 
 A Struggle with the Web-worm 
 
 to the canker-worm he is harmless : " but 
 the terror of his multiplication is upon me, 
 and I live in fear of the day when, having 
 ruined all the fruit-trees, and having failed 
 to find the shade-trees to his liking, the 
 worm may take a fancy to investigate 
 within - doors to find a more tempting 
 meal. 
 
 A vision of opening the front door in A . 
 the morning to find the house encased in future 
 an enormous web, under which the worms 
 are feeding on the shingles, and glaring 
 at you from under their silken canopy, 
 besets the imagination. You seize your 
 hat, a brisk young family drops out of it ; 
 your coat there are a score of creeping 
 things inside the sleeves. The breakfast- 
 table is invaded by a squirming throng ; 
 others hang from the draperies and wan- 
 der across the ceilings. Why may not the 
 web-worms become as great a pest to us 
 as the termites prove to the South Afri- 
 can, if the apathetic public does not 
 awake in time to the necessity of destroy- 
 ing them while they are yet in the minor- 
 ity ? 
 
 Here in this town, where the neglect of 
 "5
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 certain farmers adds so greatly to the 
 labors of their more thrifty neighbors, we 
 have seen these loathsome creatures mul- 
 tiply in a few years to an alarming extent, 
 and it seems as if the time had come to 
 render it a penal offense to neglect to de- 
 stroy the webs as fast as they appear. 
 Unquestionably, the day is coming when 
 some destructive measures will have to be 
 adopted, and the sooner the matter is 
 taken in hand the easier it will be for all 
 concerned to get rid of the evil, and I 
 should be glad if some more powerful pen 
 than mine could be used to hurry this 
 good end. 
 AH evil An evil, trifling in itself, becomes a 
 
 neglected 
 
 becomes a menace if neglected, and the compara- 
 tively inoffensive character of this little 
 brute seems to blind the public to the way 
 in which he is multiplying. A committee 
 to find out how much harm he does might 
 serve as a preliminary to more strenuous 
 measures, but if it were only in the inter- 
 est of those lovely rustic roads, in which 
 we take so much delight, it would be 
 worth while to clear away so obtrusive 
 an eyesore as these loathsome webs from 
 106
 
 - n 
 walks ' 
 
 A Struggle with the Web-worm 
 
 the waysides, otherwise so beautiful with 
 their wild vines and tangle of bushes. 
 
 Moreover, for the pedestrian the mul- The worm 
 tiplication of caterpillars is a distress %&'* 
 yearly more and more appalling. After 
 the worm has eaten his fill he sets forth 
 upon his peregrinations, to find a shel- 
 tered spot where he can become a hermit 
 in a cell, until such time as his resurrec- 
 tion as a moth is in order, and you are 
 obliged to meet him on his winding way 
 at every turn in your path. Country side- 
 walks swarm with the wretches; verandas 
 are their especial delight ; you gather a 
 flower, a caterpillar is crawling up the 
 stem ; examine your trees of all sorts, the 
 brutes are making of their trunks a public 
 promenade, up which they hurry at top 
 speed to make a cocoon in the branches ; 
 would you rest yourself upon a bench, 
 the caterpillar is there before you ; if you 
 wear a thin gown, you may have the plea- 
 sure of viewing through its meshes the 
 wriggling, hairy form of your enemy, just 
 where you cannot get at him. He makes 
 himself at home amid the flowers of your 
 bonnet, he swings down upon a silken 
 107
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 He is fatal thread within an inch of your nose. He 
 
 to Christian 
 
 character, arouses in the gentlest breast a desire to 
 slay this future parent of thousands ; he 
 undermines the character by stirring up 
 sentiments of virulent hostility in other- 
 wise peaceable souls ; he becomes a men- 
 ace not only to existence, but to Christian 
 character, by developing the savage in- 
 stincts of our nature ; and, therefore, on 
 every ground, both physical and moral, he 
 is an enemy of the public peace who should 
 be taken in hand by the authorities and be 
 doomed to extermination. 
 
 Should I be requested to provide my 
 enemy with a more precise name than 
 Web-worm, not being learned in entomol- 
 ogy, the only term I dare to vouch for 
 is Nasticrechia Krorluppia (to be pro- 
 nounced English fashion). 
 
 To this family I am entirely sure he be- 
 longs, but one of the reports of the De- 
 partment of Agriculture has a good deal 
 to say about a certain Hyphantria cunea, 
 which seems to correspond to him in some 
 particulars, and the same report furnishes 
 for him ten more synonymous names that 
 apparently can be used if necessary. 
 108
 
 A Struggle with the Web-worm 
 
 From this abundance I have selected the A descriptive 
 above as the most euphonious and descrip- na " 
 tive, for nothing could be more appropri- 
 ate than the term "Shameless Weaver," 
 which, I have been told, is the translation 
 of these polysyllables. Should my partic- 
 ular web-worm require a more formal in- 
 troduction to the public, it is to be hoped 
 that some entomologist will kindly supply 
 his real designation to those who seek fur- 
 ther information concerning this unprinci- 
 pled reptile. 
 
 109
 
 X 
 
 PLANTING TREES ON A 
 LAWN
 
 The gods who mortal beauty chase, 
 Still in a tree did end their race. 
 
 ANDREW MARVELL.
 
 j]HEN our house was built, and 
 the lawn prepared for their re- 
 ception, we made our first ex- 
 periment in moving good-sized 
 trees in the month of January, when we 
 transplanted two large Norway Maples, 
 given to us by a friend on condition that 
 we would take them away at that time, as 
 otherwise they would be destroyed by 
 some grading that was going on where 
 they stood. 
 
 Fortunately, it was an open winter, with 
 no frost in the ground, and there was no 
 difficulty about digging. I personally con- 
 ducted the procession, and insisted upon 
 having the diggers begin at the outside, 
 and work in toward the trunk, so as to 
 save all the little roots. It was slow and 
 careful work, and it took all day to move 
 two trees. They were too heavy to lift 
 with a ball of earth, as we had no special 
 "3
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 appliances for the purpose, for the largest 
 one measured six inches through, two feet 
 from the ground, and had a lofty top. 
 severe top- After the trees were carefully uprooted 
 fiSKT*" their tops were cut off, until the main 
 stems were only about eight feet high, and 
 the branches that were left running up 
 from them were also cut back to within a 
 few feet of their union with the trunk. 
 Could we have foreseen the mildness of 
 the two succeeding winters we should have 
 been tempted to prune them less severely. 
 I am almost sure that it was unnecessary, 
 but moving them at such an unusual sea- 
 son seemed to make it wise to give them 
 more root than top. It will take about 
 four years for them to get back their origi- 
 nal stature after this severe treatment, but 
 they perhaps have escaped risks of draw- 
 backs by the way. Similar trees in this 
 town, transplanted without topping, though 
 they have lived, have shown signs of fee- 
 bleness, and I am disposed to think that 
 in the end ours will make the finer speci- 
 mens. 
 
 The holes in which they were set were 
 dug six feet in diameter, and nearly five 
 114
 
 Planting Trees on a Lawn 
 
 feet deep. A gentle rain was falling when 
 the Maples were set ; six or seven cart- 
 loads of loam were put around them, and 
 when the roots were fairly covered, and 
 the ground trodden closely about them, 
 water was put into the holes before they 
 were finally filled up. 
 
 These two trees, planted on the south Great 
 side of a gravelly slope, so that the mois- fibw& 
 ture must run away from their roots more 
 than is desirable, have made so heavy 
 a growth in the last two years, that in 
 the middle of summer we have been com- 
 pelled to cut out many large branches to 
 admit light, and to improve their shape. 
 In addition to their density of growth, 
 they have shot up fresh stems, between 
 seven and eight feet long, in the two sea- 
 sons they have been fairly growing, for 
 the first summer they did not accomplish 
 much beyond a good crop of leaves. By 
 the end of July we look to see them grow 
 four or five feet more, as they are fairly 
 set, and in fine healthy condition. The 
 ground about them has been kept open 
 and cultivated, and is heavily enriched 
 several times in the course of the summer.
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 They are so near the house that we use 
 the broad space around them as beds for 
 Geraniums and Heliotropes, which proba- 
 bly detracts a little from the growth of the 
 trees, but at the same time improves their 
 appearance and keeps the earth moist and 
 well stirred up about their roots. When 
 the season is dry they are very thoroughly 
 watered at least twice a week, by leaving 
 the water from the hose running on them 
 from its open mouth for an hour or two at 
 a time. 
 
 Success r>t- In April we moved in the same manner 
 feA&mi** a Silver Maple, which has grown nine feet 
 and ten inches, and a stocky White Wil- 
 low, which has been put quite near the 
 house to give us immediate shade, of 
 which we are greatly in need, and which 
 is to be cut down as soon as the Maples 
 are big enough. This last tree, set in a 
 very dry place, has grown a dense head 
 nine feet six inches in height, so that it 
 is now a tree seventeen feet high. 
 
 These are the best we have to show, ex- 
 cept a Catalpa, which has made a most 
 luxuriant growth, for our Ash-leaved Ma- 
 ple, which was also disposed to make a 
 116
 
 Planting Trees on a Lawn 
 
 record, has been moved twice and so set 
 back. But this growth on a gravel-bank, 
 where no one thought that trees could be 
 made to live at all, is not to be despised. 
 Some of the other trees have grown almost 
 equally well, but were not so large to begin 
 with, so they seem less important. 
 
 In that same April the generous friend A generous 
 who furnished us with the large Willow 
 and the Silver Maple, kindly sent us, in ad- 
 dition, a dozen moderate-sized trees which 
 he was disposed to think would grow faster 
 than the larger ones ; and these were placed 
 somewhat at random on the lawn, for they 
 came unexpectedly, and had to be set 
 without much reflection, so that some of 
 them have had to be moved again. 
 
 And here we will honestly admit that the 
 landscape-gardener would have been of 
 great use to us, for the lack of experience 
 gives one a feeling of uncertainty about 
 the result of even his best - considered 
 arrangement, which is often disquieting. 
 
 We know for one thing that we have 
 
 too many trees too near together, because 
 
 we never dreamed they would all make 
 
 up their minds to live, and we discover 
 
 117
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 that after taking great pains to make a 
 tree grow, we cannot make up our minds 
 to disturb it for fear it will be in the way 
 in the future, and so we postpone the evil 
 day. Possibly they will do better in their 
 wind-swept situation for not being widely 
 Trees/or separated, and for the next generation, 
 generation, which will be unrestrained by our senti- 
 ments, we have provided some small Elms 
 that ought to be good trees by the time 
 the short-lived Maples are beginning to 
 shuffle off their mortal coil. We know 
 that the least enduring of them will out- 
 live us, unless we emulate old Parr, and 
 the famous Countess of Desmond, 
 
 Who lived to the age of a hundred and ten, 
 And died by a fall from a Cherry-tree then. 
 
 Elms to be All we ask is that they will hurry to shel- 
 < t^ph e . n ' ter us from the burning afternoon sun, to 
 which our front is exposed, and when their 
 task is done, the noble Elms, which are 
 " a hundred years growing, a hundred 
 years standing, a hundred years dying," 
 shall be our monument when this house, 
 like its ancient predecessor, shall have 
 crumbled to ruin. 
 
 118
 
 Planting Trees on a Lawn 
 
 Impatient as we are to achieve miracles 
 of growth, we might forget how much our 
 little trees are doing were it not for a pho- 
 tograph taken in 1888, which shows them 
 scudding under bare poles, that makes 
 their present height quite imposing by 
 contrast. 
 
 In the five years which we claimed of 
 our critics in the beginning, we are now 
 sure that all air of newness will have gone 
 from the knoll, which, even in the second 
 summer, astonished the passers-by, who 
 were most of them unused to the results 
 that can be attained by unremitting exer- 
 tions. 
 
 Against these trees we have no charges Trials with 
 to make of either stubbornness or ingrati- 
 tude ; given the conditions, the results are 
 all, and more than all, we had a right to 
 expect. The only ones that have not been 
 what we could wish are the Hemlocks, 
 which object strenuously to the dry, windy 
 situation, and only live under protest. In 
 vain do we plant nursery trees with good 
 roots ; they dwindle and pine, and refuse 
 to profit by their advantages. Out of over 
 forty trees planted on the lawn and its 
 119
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 slopes, they are the only ones that fail to 
 give satisfaction, and we desire to get the 
 better of them if possible. 
 
 No evergreen is so graceful and sugges- 
 tive of wild woodland ways as this feathery 
 denizen of the forest, that seems to shrink 
 from the companionship of man. The per- 
 fume of its boughs reminds one of camps 
 in the woods, of canoes, of Indian guides, 
 and silent solitudes. For me it has ever a 
 peculiar and elusive charm, and I cannot 
 come in my wanderings upon some majes- 
 tic old tree beside a granite boulder, as it 
 loves to grow, without a thrill compounded 
 of association and admiration. The Hem- 
 lock seems to possess every beauty that a 
 tree can have : its form, whether it be 
 symmetrical with youth, or gnarled and 
 twisted by age, is always impressive and 
 noble ; the murmur of its boughs is ten- 
 derly musical, its fragrance exquisitely 
 wild and aromatic ; its very shyness has a 
 charm that seems to breathe distinction, 
 and, best of all, it is perennially green, so 
 that its blue shadows on the snow give 
 one of the loveliest tones in a winter 
 landscape.
 
 Planting Trees on a Lawn 
 
 Why, then, since I woo it with such Killed -with 
 tender affection, such anxious care, does ktndnes 
 it refuse to grow for me ? Possibly it is 
 killed with kindness, and some wholesome 
 neglect may be what its shy soul desires, 
 for I notice that the little ones in the 
 swale, half smothered in grass, do not die, 
 though left wholly to their own wayward 
 devices, while the pampered specimens on 
 the lawn lift bare and ragged branches to 
 the sky, from out their luxurious beds of 
 mulching, and are painfully disappointing 
 and uncertain.
 
 XI 
 
 RECLAIMING A SAL1 
 MEADOW
 
 Ye marshes, how candid and simple, and nothing 
 withholding and free, 
 
 Ye publish yourselves to the sky, and offer your- 
 selves to the sea. 
 
 SIDNEY LANIER.
 
 XI 
 
 [HE ornamental part of the place 
 once under way, we had leisure 
 to give a little attention to 
 the practical, and accordingly 
 we began to wish to utilize some of the 
 waste land lying on the east side of the 
 farm, where the salt water made free in- 
 roads during high tides into a half acre 
 of otherwise good mowing, and here we 
 learned the meaning of an interesting par- 
 able in Roman history. 
 
 The fable of Metius Curtius plunging 
 on horseback into the morass which had 
 opened in the Roman Forum, because the 
 oracle had declared that only the best 
 thing in Rome would be of avail to close 
 it up, must have been invented simply 
 to show that the Romans, great engi- 
 neers as they were, fully recognized that 
 filling up a marsh was a well-nigh endless 
 job, which would require the sacrifice of 
 I2 5
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 the best blood and treasure of the state 
 before it was accomplished. 
 
 NO man In spite of the illustrious warning given 
 
 by M. Curtius, there lives not a man with 
 soul so dead as not to be fired with am- 
 bition to make dry ground out of his 
 meadow, if he is so unlucky as to own 
 one ; and he always starts in with figures 
 on paper to show what a fine income of 
 hay is to result from a comparatively small 
 investment of labor and gravel. But the 
 work goes on, then more work and more 
 gravel, till finally the account of this part 
 of the business gets mislaid, so that by 
 the time the far distant hay crop begins to 
 materialize, a haze has settled over the 
 amount of capital (literally) sunk, and 
 only the hay returns are brought promi- 
 nently to the front. 
 
 When we first surveyed the half acre or 
 so of salt-grass which had been left over 
 on our side of the fence when the road 
 was built across the meadow, it did not 
 seem of much importance, one way or the 
 other. The English grass grew luxuriantly 
 down to the edge of it, and the soft, fine 
 salt-hay was excellent for bedding, the 
 126
 
 Reclaiming a Salt Meadow 
 
 only objection being that it was so palata- 
 ble that the horses ate up their mattress 
 before breakfast every morning. 
 
 After the causeway was constructed 
 across the wet ground behind the stable 
 to Winter Street, there did not seem very 
 much reason for meddling further with 
 the marsh, but given a gravel-bank at one 
 end of a farm, and a swamp at the other, 
 and you may depend upon it there will be 
 a marriage between them at no very dis- 
 tant date. 
 
 The intercourse between the two of our The hm 
 acquaintance, once begun, was seldom in- "Z^nk in- 
 terrupted ; the more the meadow saw of itrmarfy 
 the hill the more it wanted to see. and, 
 with a perversity only to be found in mea- 
 dows, the more it was given the more it 
 wanted of the same kind. 
 
 At first it seemed as if a few cartloads 
 of stones dumped in the lowest parts, 
 where the water stood longest, would be 
 all-sufficient, but the amount of material 
 that this anaconda of a marsh can stow 
 away is, to use the slang of the day, phe- 
 nomenal. 
 
 Piles of stones, rubbish, sand, boughs, 
 127
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 A marsh trunks and roots of trees, old crockery, 
 
 ivill swallow , i i /i r 11 
 
 everything, ashes, the debris ot our own and other 
 people's places, it "swallows them all 
 without any remorse," till the top of the 
 fence along the road has nearly disap- 
 peared from view, and still it calls for 
 more, and continues to subside. 
 
 Across the street our neighbors have 
 tried the experiment before us, so that we 
 are aware that it is unsafe to put soil on 
 this gravel until after it has had a chance 
 to settle for a year or two, otherwise a high 
 tide is liable to come and wash away all 
 the loam out to sea. 
 
 As the surface rises the fresh water runs 
 off less easily, so that the enterprise gains 
 in magnitude as it goes along, and the 
 space covered promises to turn out a 
 whole acre instead of half a one, before 
 the job is fairly completed. 
 
 A capacious Still, time and the hill will fill even this 
 capacious maw, and, though at present in 
 a transition state, the meadow gives prom- 
 ise of a beautiful grass field, which, it is 
 to be hoped, will repay all the labor of its 
 construction. 
 
 The tradition goes that the building of 
 128
 
 Reclaiming a Salt Meadow 
 
 the street behind us across his meadow-lot Building a 
 
 was too much for the gentleman who 
 
 owned the place at the time it was made, 
 
 and that he never recovered from the 
 
 shock of having his estate thus divided 
 
 and his house-lot spoiled. The enterprise 
 
 was a formidable one, for it involved the 
 
 construction of a great stone arch across 
 
 the stream that drains the meadow, and 
 
 the laying down of heavy plank rafts for 
 
 the piers of the stone bridge to stand 
 
 upon. For years the road would be built 
 
 up to a good height every summer, and 
 
 then would subside under the influence of 
 
 the high tides in the autumn and spring, 
 
 till it seemed as if it would never hold its 
 
 own, and keep its head above water all 
 
 the year round. 
 
 But constant renewals of the layers of A good 
 gravel have at length made of it so sub- 
 stantial a causeway, that nothing but the 
 very highest of spring - tides prevails 
 against it, and such water as finds itself 
 on our side forces itself rather under than 
 over it. 
 
 Those of our neighbors who have re- 
 claimed land from the main meadow on
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 Land re- the other side of the road, have done so 
 c }rom e fhe by first building a kind of rough dam of 
 ww 4 - stones and clay, and then gradually filling 
 in behind this dam with rubbish and stones 
 and sand until they reach the level of the 
 street. When properly covered with loam, 
 after having had plenty of time to settle, 
 this well-watered foundation affords excel- 
 lent soil for grass, which grows upon it 
 with great luxuriance. 
 
 As the road acts still further for a dam 
 between us and the meadow, our task be- 
 comes simpler, and we can reclaim our 
 piece of land with far less trouble than 
 our neighbors have had with theirs, and 
 we are encouraged to look for equally 
 good results. 
 
 But it is distressing to see the surface 
 of the hill, which we would fain see rolling 
 in graceful slopes to the swale, waving 
 with the forest of our imagination, still 
 vexed by the presence of carts and horses, 
 and torn by the torturing spade. 
 Patience He who undertakes to change the face 
 
 hZngefke of nature must needs have patience. Mon- 
 ^nature archs like Nebuchadnezzar may hang gar- 
 dens in the air in a few months, or a 
 130
 
 Reclaiming a Salt Meadow 
 
 Louis Fourteenth may construct a plea- Freakish 
 sure-ground like Versailles, by the aid of %riTJnt* 
 forty millions and the genius of Lenotre, S erence - 
 in a few years'; but one who has not the 
 resources of an empire at command must 
 imitate more closely Nature's own deliber- 
 ate and tortuous methods, often seeing 
 the labor of years destroyed in a moment 
 by an unforeseen freak of the old dame, 
 who resents being interfered with, or find- 
 ing to his dismay that his own scheme 
 has been a mistaken one, and must be 
 revised. 
 
 An illustrious townsman of ours started 
 like ourselves with a bit of salt meadow, 
 in which he laboriously constructed a 
 pond, spending his hours of ease from 
 the cares of state in building a wall about 
 it, to make a neat and appropriate curb. 
 But after this was accomplished, with 
 much trouble, it proved not to be at all 
 what he wanted, so that there was nothing 
 for it but to fill the hole, and with months 
 of labor bring the meadow into a smoothly 
 turfed field. 
 
 Our day of repentance has not yet 
 dawned, but we have a fear that it lurks *
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 Her malice, somewhere behind the horizon. Some 
 modern Metius Curtius may yet have to 
 be found to help fill up the marsh with a 
 horse and wagon, for that Charybdis has 
 already taken toll more than once from a 
 dump-cart, though she has not yet suc- 
 ceeded in swallowing it up in spite of vari- 
 ous malicious efforts. She has designs 
 upon the cow, only frustrated by careful 
 watchfulness, and to her deep treachery 
 there is no end. The family purse she 
 long ago put in her pocket, and her mouth 
 yawns for all the future revenues that 
 may accrue for her benefit. She has eaten 
 up a large part of a neighbor's hill, be- 
 sides taking most unbecoming bites out of 
 our own, and if ever future generations 
 weave a legend about the ancient dragon 
 of Overlea, which demanded a victim every 
 summer, it will be traced by the unraveler 
 of myths of the period, to the unremitting 
 appetite of this hungry meadow. 
 Loveliness But who, looking out on some sweet 
 "vUwin spring day upon that beguiling distance, 
 spring - could believe ill of anything so softly 
 lovely as the picturesque marsh of which 
 our field is the fag-end. In the foreground, 
 132
 
 Reclaiming a Salt Meadow 
 
 the richest tones of green are gently 
 blending in the grass ; in the middle dis- 
 tance a point runs out towards the stream, 
 laden with fruit-trees in snowy bloom ; the 
 Willows near and far are putting on their 
 gray-green coats, making a tender shim- 
 mer around their swaying branches and 
 
 graceful twigs. The little river winds, blue The wind- 
 ing river. 
 and full, here and there amid the grassy 
 
 stretches, and the distant hills are full of 
 opalescent hues of emerald and pearl, 
 with red of tree-stems, and faintest green 
 hints of foliage, such as Monet would 
 love to paint. The houses of the port, 
 not yet quite veiled by leaves, make spots 
 of white and yellow and red against the 
 deepening background of Elms and Ma- 
 ples. A streak of blue still indicates the 
 harbor ; by to-morrow it will have disap- 
 peared, for the vision changes like a kalei- 
 doscope, the white of Pear blossoms 
 passing like a cloud, to be succeeded by 
 the rosy blush of Apple buds. Each day 
 some well-known feature of the winter 
 landscape grows fainter as the leaves ex- 
 pand, till of a sudden you look for it and 
 it has gone, and in its stead are the full- 
 133
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 robed trees. Over all domes a blue sky 
 streaked with faint white cirrus clouds, 
 only the azure reflected in the placid 
 stream below. 
 A picture An impressionist alone could catch this 
 
 exquisite, 
 
 but evanes- fleeting beauty of early May to-day one 
 thing, to-morrow another and fix it eter- 
 nally upon his canvas. The tender grace 
 of early spring, and the glowing glory of 
 autumn are alike evanescent and wonder- 
 ful expressions on this smiling meadow 
 face. Like a dream, this hint of ineffable 
 beauty melts away, and the impression 
 gives place to a reality of vivid green field 
 and dark blue water, which will make but 
 a pleasant inland landscape until the Au- 
 gust sun burnishes it into ruby and gold, 
 and makes it once more a vision for a 
 painter. 
 
 The exquisite must perforce be evanes- 
 cent, that no touch of commonness may 
 mar its distinction. " The tender grace 
 of a day that is dead" haunts many a 
 spot, otherwise tame enough, with a mem- 
 ory and a knowledge of its capabilities, 
 that make it forever dear and beautiful to 
 him who has seen it under that enchant- 
 134
 
 Reclaiming a Salt Meadow 
 
 ing glamour lent by a season, or an hour, Memory of 
 which imprints upon the brain a picture 
 that can never be forgotten. And when 
 at other times of year I look upon this far 
 reach of often - changing meadow, there 
 abides with it always a memory of the soft 
 and tender charm of early spring, that no 
 reality of November-brown or winter-snow 
 can wholly drive away.
 
 XII 
 TERRACES AND SHRUBS
 
 How could such sweet and wholesome hours 
 Be reckoned, but with shrubs and flowers ? 
 
 MARVELL.
 
 XII 
 
 )NTINUING our practical ef- 
 forts, we were moved to enlarge 
 around our dwelling the space 
 which, after a year's occupation, 
 we found rather too contracted to be en- 
 tirely satisfactory; for, though we have 
 no especial preference for terraces, which 
 used to form a feature of many old-fash- 
 ioned homes, the conditions of our house- 
 lot have forced them upon us on three 
 sides. As I have before stated, the flat 
 top of the knoll is very limited in extent, 
 so that, even in building, we were forced 
 to cut our coat according to our cloth, and 
 support the rear of the house with a high 
 basement, to serve for laundry, dairy, and 
 other offices, instead of adding the more 
 usual L, or wing. 
 
 The width of the lot at this point would 
 not allow of more than ninety feet be- 
 tween us and the highway, even by set- 
 139
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 ting the building as far back as possible ; 
 and when this was done, leaving a gentle 
 slope from the front door to the road, the 
 ground on the north and south sides of 
 house fell with such abruptness from the 
 foundations that no room was left even 
 for a passage-way. 
 
 ffowitwas This lack was remedied on the north of 
 the house by constructing a terrace suffi- 
 ciently wide on top for a tree or two, and 
 some shrubbery to mask the foundations, 
 with plenty of space for climbing things 
 to grow over the veranda. This bank, 
 supported on the east by the heavy wing- 
 wall of the house, slopes to a driveway 
 below, which leads to the stable behind. 
 It is high and steep, but well sodded, and 
 rather adds to the commanding effect of 
 the house, beside serving to break the 
 height of the building at the back. A 
 flight of steps at the rear of the veranda 
 leads to the drive below, and some good- 
 sized Pines have been planted there to 
 still further hide the basement. 
 
 Fault in the The main approach was not planned 
 *troach. with sufficient consideration for anything 
 but convenience, and consists of a semi- 
 140
 
 Terraces and Shrubs 
 
 circular driveway to allow the house to be 
 easily reached from both ends of the town, 
 but it would be better if the front door 
 were only accessible from the north to 
 carriages, which would give us an un- 
 broken stretch of grass on the east and 
 south, whereas now there is a half-moon 
 of greensward in front, inclosed between 
 the driveway and the street, thickly 
 planted with trees, destined soon to form 
 an effectual screen betwen us and the 
 dusty road. 
 
 South of the house, near the highway, We 
 the ground slopes gently into the swale, L^ 
 which, with its groups of trees, forms a 
 side lawn of uneven surface, bounded at 
 the rear by the hill, with its rising tiers 
 of little Pines. Near the dwelling, how- 
 ever, in order to get any greensward or 
 shade at all, we were forced to build, 
 of stones and gravel, a terrace some 
 twenty-five feet in width at its narrowest 
 part, to support which about two hundred 
 feet or more of massive wall were con- 
 structed. This wall is low in front, and 
 buries itself in the grassy slope, but where 
 it curves around the knoll at the rear, it 
 141
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 is six feet high, and makes a warm back- 
 ground for Grapevines, and the hot-beds, 
 which are placed below the vines, fronting 
 the south. A steep bank, thickly sodded, 
 descends from the level of the lawn to the 
 top of the wall, which is also covered 
 with turf. This sunny south terrace is 
 the very spot for the old-fashioned Rose 
 bushes which we have transplanted hither 
 from the other parts of the place, and 
 here, too, is a bed for more delicate speci- 
 mens, which can be protected by a glass 
 frame in the winter-time, as well as a tree 
 to shade the south windows from the heat. 
 The wall was quite an important con- 
 struction, and I am afraid to say how 
 many tons of stone went into it, for the 
 largest portion of it is underground, the 
 results being very solid and substantial. 
 other ter- Behind the house, on the basement- 
 level, is still another curved terrace, from 
 which a grassy cart-path leads down to 
 the swale and the hot-beds, and here the 
 various walls are utilized to protect rows 
 of Currant bushes above, and Raspberry 
 bushes below, which are easy of access 
 from the kitchen-door. 
 142
 
 Terraces and Shrubs 
 
 To cover all this expanse of gravel Much ham 
 foundation required untold quantities of regutr> 
 loam, so much, indeed, that we thought 
 ourselves fortunate if we could allow an 
 average of four inches over the whole sur- 
 face 'of the lawn, but this meagre allow- 
 ance seems to afford sufficient hold for 
 the grass-roots, and heavy annual dress- 
 ings of compost add continually to its 
 depth. It is rather a curious study to 
 watch the formation of soil, and the grad- 
 ual way in which the sand below is trans- 
 formed by the roots first into yellow, 
 and then into black loam. How long, we 
 wonder, will it take before a foot of soil 
 is obtained over a surface treated as this 
 lawn is treated, the fine grass dropped 
 from the lawn-mower being left upon it 
 without raking, and the drainage from the 
 heavily enriched trees always helping it 
 along, in addition to its own annual dress- 
 ings ? 
 
 The shrubs on the knoll, at first scat- impossible to 
 tered about rather promiscuously, as they 
 increase in size we are struggling to group 
 properly, according to the lights thrown 
 upon this subject by our reading, but the
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 Lack o/ articles we have carefully studied on this 
 matertai. topic presuppose a great number of bushes 
 of one kind to begin with, and where you 
 have perhaps three Golden Spiraeas, and 
 a half dozen Lilac bushes, and a hardy 
 Hydrangea or two. and a few Deutzias, 
 and Weigelias, and other heterogeneous 
 things in variety, the question is to set 
 them so that they will produce the effect 
 of twenty-five of each. We have managed 
 it so that really the shrubbery appears 
 rather crowded, but it has been done in a 
 manner to horrify the authorities. 
 A sketch in We have treated our landscape very 
 much as a painter would his canvas. We 
 dab in a shrub where we think it will pro- 
 duce the effect of half a dozen, and if, 
 after a few months, the picture seems to 
 require its removal, out it is scratched, 
 and set in another spot, and thus, in true 
 amateur fashion, we feel our way toward 
 a final result, for we find things never 
 look when they are little as they do when 
 they are fairly grown, the usual experi- 
 ence of amateur gardeners. 
 
 The best that can be said for this 
 method is, that the results are unconven- 
 144
 
 Terraces and Shrubs 
 
 tional. I have discovered that a land- Mannerism 
 
 . of the pro- 
 
 scape-gardener gets a style, a mannerism, fessionai 
 like a poet or a draughtsman, and that, ga 
 after some experience, you can detect the 
 professional manufacturer of a garden by 
 the receipts on which he works. Twenty- 
 five Spiraeas here, twenty Deutzias there, 
 Viburnums one dozen, Lilacs in variety, 
 Forsythias eight; a bushel or two of golden 
 Evergreens mixed with Juniper and Ar- 
 bor Vitas, at such a point ; a hedge here, 
 curves on this side, straight lines on that, 
 etc., etc., it is all reduced to a system, 
 and the results, if repeated in the same 
 town, are monotonous. 
 
 We are bound, having gone in for it, to 
 defend the natural method. If the results 
 of the artificial are more satisfactory, the 
 execution is not half the fun. 
 
 Can there be, I ask you, the same en- 
 joyment in sitting down to watch the 
 growth of a border of shrubs that some- 
 body has set out for you, that there is in 
 dragging the few you have planted your- 
 self out of their holes and transporting 
 them to a more becoming place, as you 
 would a flower on a bonnet ? 
 MS
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 We give our ' Anybody can put in a tree or a shrub 
 airing. and let it alone, but it takes nerve to 
 wheel it about like a baby in a go-cart. 
 
 We have neighbors who employ the 
 conventional methods with dazzling re- 
 sults, but, on the whole, we doubt if their 
 vast and imposing plantations give them 
 as much enjoyment as our more personal 
 intercourse with our little family of grow- 
 ing things. We are quite sure that each 
 scrubby little Pine on the hill is dearer to 
 us than a thicket of well-fed trees planted 
 by a nurseryman. 
 Parable of " You will know my children," said the 
 
 t t t heF l X and Owl t0 the F X > With wh m She had made 
 
 a compact to spare them, " by their being 
 the most beautiful little darlings in the 
 whole world." But when the Fox came 
 to the nest full of big-eyed, long-billed, 
 unfledged frights, he failed to recognize 
 the description, and ate them all up un- 
 der a misapprehension. De nobis fabnla. 
 We are afraid that most people would 
 pronounce in favor of the upholstering of 
 the professional, rather than of our pri- 
 vate efforts at lawn-furnishing, but we can 
 recommend our method on the ground of 
 146
 
 Terraces and Shrubs 
 
 economy, both of material and of amuse- 
 ment, for there is no reason why this play 
 should not go on forever, like a Wagner 
 opera. It has its surprises too, in the way 
 of some happy effect that you had not im- 
 agined, and again, you are horrified at the 
 outcome of some arrangement that seemed 
 felicitous. We have got our own shrubs 
 so beautifully trained now, that they do 
 not mind moving on the first of May, any 
 more than an old New York citizen. Up 
 they come, blossoms and all, and never 
 drop a petal, but go on blooming se- 
 renely in their new home as if they had 
 always been there. One spring we had 
 from a kind friend a present of a box of 
 rare and beautiful little shrubs, the very 
 names of which it took a day to look up. 
 We knew they were coming, but not what 
 they were to be, so a bed was prepared 
 for them within easy reach of the hose, 
 and, when they came, they were set out 
 carefully, in the midst of an April snow- 
 storm, and a cold wind, which nipped 
 their poor little half-opened leaves most 
 cruelly. 
 
 After they were all arranged, and the
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 A muddle of weather had moderated sufficiently for 
 ""**' one to study the labels, we found that the 
 arrangement would have driven a gardener 
 wild ; future 'trees, a hundred feet high, hav- 
 ing been set side by side with burly little 
 shrubs, which at present look much more 
 important than their (to be) stately neigh- 
 bors. What with snow one day, and burn- 
 ing heat the next, combined with steady 
 dry weather, those shrubs have had a strug- 
 gle for existence, in which they have been 
 sturdily abetted by their natural protec- 
 tors. The hose one minute, and newspa- 
 pers and branches of trees the next, were 
 called upon to supply the deficiencies of 
 Nature, who was more than ever capricious 
 during that extraordinary season, and 
 since at the end of the summer they were 
 all well and firmly established, it shows 
 what care will do to defy the inclemen- 
 cies of the weather. After a year or two 
 they will have acquired the customs of the 
 place sufficiently to be moved where they 
 will make the best show, but before they 
 reach their final resting-place it is possible 
 that they may have several halts by the 
 way. With a ball of earth attached to the 
 148
 
 Terraces and Shrubs 
 
 roots, traveling does not seem to hurt 
 them much, though no doubt it retards 
 their growth somewhat, which is all the 
 better if they are to be kept in proper pro- 
 portion to the place, which is not adapted 
 to anything very gigantic. 
 
 Of one thing I have become certain in Looking 
 this limited experience of landscape-gar- ' 
 dening, and that is, that the pleasure is in 
 the doing, in the vision of the mind, in the 
 ever-expanding hope for the future. When 
 the trees have grown too large to move, 
 and the shrubs are irrevocably rooted, we 
 shall surely be no happier than now, when 
 they are viewed in a halo of imagination. 
 149
 
 XIII 
 EVERGREENS JN SPRING
 
 ' Come to me," 
 
 Quoth the Pine-tree, 
 ' I am the giver of honor. 
 
 My garden is the cloven rock 
 
 And my manure the snow ; 
 
 And drifting sand-heaps feed my stock, 
 
 In summer's scorching glow." 
 
 EMERSON. 
 
 O Hemlock Tree ! O Hemlock Tree ! 
 
 How faithful are thy branches ! 
 Green not alone in summer time, 
 
 But in the winter's frost and rime. 
 
 LONGFELLOW.
 
 XIII 
 
 I LIT the question arises, will those Depressing 
 little trees on the hill ever at- SSSff*'" 
 tain a satisfactory growth ? We spri " s ' 
 have various opinions on this 
 matter, our answer being more or less af- 
 fected by the season at which it is put, 
 we have a few ups, and a good many more 
 downs about it. For instance, I know few 
 things more depressing than the sight of 
 conifers in May, when every deciduous 
 tree is putting its best foot foremost, and 
 giving promise of a fine crop of leaves. 
 The Pines and Spruces and Firs which 
 have gladdened our eyes all winter, with 
 their fine green masses relieved against 
 the snow, or standing up bravely from the 
 brown grass in rich contrast to the bar- 
 renness around, now begin to show the 
 sere and yellow leaf. The March sun 
 and winds have burned and browned their 
 tips, the winter storms have buffeted their
 
 Tlje Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 branches, and torn great gaps in their out- 
 line. Their new shoots are all hidden un- 
 der a little tight white, or yellow, or brown 
 nightcap that looks dried and wizened, as 
 if no promise of life lurked underneath. 
 
 When the snow melts sufficiently for 
 one to walk abroad among his plantations, 
 he views them with a feeling akin to de- 
 spair, so unlikely do they seem to recover 
 themselves. Some branches are entirely 
 dead, the tops of others are winter-killed, 
 a few have turned copper-color from root 
 to crown, and, beside the bright green of 
 bursting buds and springing grass, the 
 best of them look worn and dingy by con- 
 trast. 
 
 They pluck Not until the middle of May do they 
 "spirit^ pluck up their spirits, pull off their bon- 
 nets, and show that their apparent dead- 
 ness resulted from the fact that they take 
 their season differently from their gayer 
 neighbors, and wear their winter furs, 
 however rusty and inappropriate, far into 
 spring, while all the others have come out 
 in their new clothes of brightest hue. 
 Some years June will be here before they 
 condescend to put out the green tassels
 
 Evergreens in Spring 
 
 which are their first adornment, but 
 through the month of roses they do their 
 prettiest, and hang out their banners with 
 the best. 
 
 Some of the authorities recommend the Planting in 
 month of June as the most desirable for 
 transplanting evergreens, but my experi- 
 ence would lead me to the conclusion 
 that with them, as well as with hard-wood 
 trees, the period before the bursting of 
 the buds is more satisfactory than the 
 time when they have already begun to 
 swell. Seasons vary so decidedly that a 
 few warm days may hasten the new 
 shoots, and they may be three inches long 
 before you think of going for trees, so 
 that they droop discouragingly after trans- 
 planting, and sometimes never brace up 
 again. This is particularly the case with 
 Pines, which have a way of drooping their 
 little brown heads despairingly, and refus- 
 ing to stiffen, in which case, if they can- 
 not be freely watered, they are sure to die. 
 
 This year the warm days in April so Pines need 
 quickened all vegetable life, that, when ** 
 we set forth in the middle of May in 
 search of new trees for the hill, we found
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 to our surprise that the green tassels on 
 some of the trees were as long as one's 
 finger, which gave us a pang lest we were 
 already too late for the best satisfaction. 
 go in However, as there had been already 
 i*es. some six weeks of unprecedentedly dry 
 weather, and signs of rain were in the 
 atmosphere, it seemed that if there was 
 any chance at all, now was our time. We 
 accordingly arranged for a morning among 
 the Pines, and, accompanied by a big 
 farm-wagon to bring them home in, we 
 wended our way along the winding coun- 
 try roads, until we came to where the 
 young trees abounded, and we could select 
 our specimens. 
 
 There is little doubt that the stocky, 
 bushy trees of close, heavy foliage, not 
 more than two or three feet high, are the 
 most likely to live and do well, but there 
 are days when one's ambition outruns 
 one's discretion, and, revolting at the slow- 
 ness of the growth of the little ones, he 
 desires to realize his forest immediately, 
 if only for one summer, and so, like a 
 child who plants his sand-garden with 
 blooming flowers, ventures on a load of 
 156
 
 Evergreens in Spring 
 
 trees five or six feet high, in hopes that, 
 after making a brave show for a few 
 months, they will be aided by some happy 
 freak of nature to take root in earnest. 
 
 But planting Pines on a dry hillside is A lottery in 
 like investing in a lottery the success trt 
 of the enterprise depends wholly on the 
 sort of weather that immediately follows, 
 and who can reckon with that ? Talk of 
 the vicissitudes in the life of a broker 
 what are his uncertain and incalculable 
 quantities compared to those with which 
 the farmer and gardener have to deal ? A 
 broker can abstain from buying bonds 
 and stocks if he will, but the farmer has 
 to plant when the time comes, and take 
 his chances, and for surprises the weather 
 can give points to Wall Street any day. 
 With the largest experience and judgment 
 you can no more reckon securely on the 
 coming down of rain, than of Bell Tele- 
 phone, or Calumet and Hecla. 
 
 No sooner are one's trees planted than 
 he becomes a bear upon the weather mar- 
 ket, but this summer, Old Probabilities 
 has made a corner with the bulls, and 
 kept rain up persistently, so that the wisest 
 J57
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 calculations have gone agley ; and if Paul 
 plants, and Apollos declines to water, 
 what then ? 
 
 To return to our expedition. There 
 was an easterly tang in the air, a smell of 
 rain that promised well for the morrow, 
 though in the shelter of the trees all was 
 warmth and sunshine, and bursting buds. 
 Upon the rocks the Lady's - slipper was 
 waving its rosy blossoms, tempting us to 
 add a few roots of it to our shady garden, 
 where it has thriven well. The Beeches 
 and Birches were full of crumpled leaflets, 
 Anemones were blooming by the wayside, 
 the oak-tops were reddened with the flush 
 of early leaf-buds, the forest was astir. 
 Along the fences ran the busy chipmunks, 
 saucily chattering, with their bushy tails 
 trailing behind them. The wood robins 
 were singing in the thickets, and the 
 thrushes challenging us from wayside 
 bushes. In northern Maine one hears al- 
 ways in summer the tender song of the 
 Peabody bird in such places, but here it 
 occurs but seldom, and I missed it from 
 the woodland sounds, of which the air was 
 full. The Witch-hazel stared at us with 
 158
 
 Evergreens in Spring 
 
 its wicked-looking eyes, and the Hemlocks 
 hid themselves behind the Alders. 
 
 When at last we came to the clearing, w e come 
 we found Pines in plenty, but, unfortu- ^dffii 
 nately, the soil was rocky, and the trees irees ' 
 were hard to dislodge, and did not come 
 up with as good a ball of earth as in the 
 sandy hill where we had found them be- 
 fore ; but we packed them well away in 
 the cart, with moss about their roots, and 
 a rubber blanket to keep off the sun, and 
 pretty soon the wagon was nodding with 
 trees four or five feet high, closely jammed 
 together, and Birnam Wood was on the 
 march for Dunsinane. 
 
 The hill had been dug the day before, 
 and some twoscore holes prepared for the 
 new-comers, so that by noon-time those 
 of the first load were all firmly wedged 
 into their beds, to be staked and tied later, 
 to prevent their rocking with the wind, 
 which gives them at present quite the air 
 of a paddock of frisky young colts, care- 
 fully hitched to prevent their getting away. 
 
 That night there was a brisk and most 
 encouraging shower, and the next day, 
 after the rest of the holes had been filled
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 with a second load of Pines, there came 
 down quite a respectable rain, so that we 
 greatly plumed ourselves upon our fore- 
 sight in having got our trees in the nick 
 of time, just as the drought " broke." 
 
 But, alas, for the prescience of man, and 
 for our corner in Pines ! We mulched 
 them all well with sea-weed, to keep in 
 what moisture we might, and waited confi- 
 dently for more rain but no rain came ! 
 Two weeks more of dry weather ensued ; 
 many of the green tassels hung sadly 
 down, a cold, dry wind blew, twisting and 
 turning them in every direction, and mer- 
 cilessly whipped the branches about, 
 giving the poor things a cruel foretaste of 
 what they are likely to encounter as time 
 goes on. If the new trees look about upon 
 their well-rooted neighbors, they must be 
 struck with the havoc made upon them 
 by the northwest wind. It is always the 
 northwest side of a tree that is brownest 
 and thinnest, and which shows the most 
 broken branches, and the greatest number 
 of withered, copper-colored spines. 
 
 Not until the last of May did the rain 
 come down in earnest, too late for any 
 160
 
 Evergreens in Spring 
 
 but the most healthy of the Pines to reap 
 the benefit of its invigorating freshness, 
 and they still had the hot summer before 
 them. 
 
 To show the importance of moisture to A tree 
 a Pine, I will add that among the trees 
 brought, there were about a dozen that 
 had no ball of earth attached to them, 
 and reached here with perfectly bare 
 roots. Knowing it was useless to set 
 them on the hill in this condition, they 
 were all planted in a very wet place at the 
 foot of it, which is kept as a nursery for 
 decrepit and rootless trees. If from any- 
 where we receive a tree poorly provided 
 with roots, or of drooping and unhappy 
 aspect, or if we bring one home that 
 looks unpromising, into that moist spot it 
 goes, and never a tree has perished there 
 yet, no matter how forlorn a specimen it 
 was when it went into the ground. This 
 nursery is called the Tree Hospital, and 
 we find a year in it is a cure for most of 
 the ailments that roots are heir to. 
 
 In this last experiment, the ten trees 
 planted there, though quite the worst of 
 the lot, never showed a sign of wilting 
 161
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 through all the dry weather. Their tassels 
 stood up straight and stiff, of a clean 
 bright green, and, though so unpromising 
 to start with, they will probably in the end 
 leave the others far behind. Even the 
 Hemlocks, so troublesome on the lawn, 
 thrive in this low and sheltered spot, where 
 we have finally sent the worst of them for 
 repairs. I have been told, by one who 
 knows, that what the Hemlock cannot 
 abide is the March sun, which does mis- 
 chief, while the blaze of summer is harm- 
 less to it. 
 
 Hemlocks at I was shown one day at the Arnold 
 Arboretum. Arboretum, near Boston, the north side 
 of a hill, steep and rocky, but clothed with 
 giant Hemlocks from its lofty summit to 
 the burbling beck at its base. No nobler 
 sight can be imagined. I entered this 
 forest at twilight, and I found it a temple, 
 solemn and silent. The majestic trunks 
 rose from their rocky base at wide inter- 
 vals, climbing one above the other to the 
 crest of the lofty eminence they crowned. 
 Their close-knit branches far overhead 
 formed a dense canopy through which the 
 failing light came dimly, as befits a tem- 
 162
 
 Evergreens in Spring 
 
 pie. So wild, so sylvan a spot, within the N8 foreign 
 limits of a great city, can be found in no sucA a ^/ht. 
 European park, however magnificent. It 
 is unique and singularly imposing. On 
 the southern slope of that hill no Hem- 
 lock grows, showing that what this noble 
 tree demands for full development is shade 
 and coolness, and shelter from summer 
 winds, which burn and blight. That 
 glimpse of ancient woodland, ages old, 
 will always linger in my memory as a link 
 between the bustling present and the si- 
 lent past. The busy city presses around 
 it, the hum of traffic is near. You step 
 aside from the highway, pass a gate, cross 
 a tiny brook that tumbles as carelessly at 
 the foot of the hill as if it were racing 
 through the wilds of Colorado, and you 
 enter a domain apparently as remote, ven- 
 erable, and silent as when the Indian was 
 the sole occupant of Shawmut and found 
 his way through the trackless forest to his 
 hunting-grounds. A little path worn by 
 the foot strays along beside the laughing 
 stream ; other paths may lead over the 
 hill, but in the dimness I failed to see 
 them, and the solitude seemed unbroken. 
 163
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 The forest Night was falling, the air was chill, the 
 murmur of the leaves far above was barely 
 audible ; the impression was indescribably 
 solemn and church-like, as if the aisles of 
 some great cathedral were there stretch- 
 ing away into the shadowy distance, full 
 of mystery. 
 
 Stately and strong the old trees stood, 
 as if they might be as eternal as the rocks 
 and hill, and beautiful they were in their 
 silent majesty, uplifting their venerable 
 heads to the gray evening sky which had 
 domed over them for centuries. 
 
 On an opposite hill a grove of young 
 evergreens was springing up. 
 
 rkeDirec- "That, too, will be fine in a hundred 
 forward. years," said the Director, as we passed out 
 of the great gate ; and, with a thought of 
 my baby forest at home which, perhaps, 
 in a century or two, may be worth while, 
 I went away grave but rejoicing, for I had 
 seen a noble sight. 
 
 164
 
 XIV 
 
 THE LOVE OF FLOWERS IN 
 AMERICA
 
 Fables were not more 
 Bright, nor loved of yore ; 
 
 Yet they grew not, like the flowers, by every old 
 pathway. 
 
 LEIGH HUNT.
 
 XIV 
 
 jjHILE we and our neighbors are A false 
 doing our best to stock 
 grounds with ornamental shrubs 
 and blossoms, it is discouraging 
 to be told by some of our periodicals, 
 which are probably edited by gentlemen 
 who live chiefly in towns, that Americans 
 do not love flowers, because they are 
 used among the rich and fashionable in 
 reckless profusion, for display rather than 
 enjoyment. It is also claimed that we are 
 not a flower-loving people, because we 
 accept botanical appellations for our indi- 
 genous plants, instead of giving them sim- 
 ple, homely names like the charming ones 
 with which familiar flowers have been 
 christened in older countries. 
 
 To this may be answered, that what os- 
 tentatious dwellers in towns are guilty of is 
 by no means to be accepted as a national 
 trait. The place to study the characteris- 
 167
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 An aid New tics of a people is not among the very 
 twon. n rich, but among those in moderate cir- 
 cumstances, who make up the bulk of 
 the inhabitants ; those who occupy its 
 longer settled regions, and best represent 
 its individual and continuous modes of 
 thought. And when I see how little these 
 idle talkers know about what country peo- 
 ple feel and think, I wish that our urban 
 critics could walk though this ancient 
 town, and be introduced to its flower 
 lovers, and get a glimpse of its interesting 
 gardens, before they make up their minds 
 so positively about the tendencies of our 
 A testa/ people. Here can be found the American 
 cforacr. race at its best, unadulterated by foreign 
 admixture, or perverted from its instincts 
 by the pressure of conventions ; a people 
 that has lived on the soil for two hundred 
 and fifty years, and has had time to de- 
 velop its characteristics, a much better 
 test to judge by than the floating popula- 
 tion of newer towns farther west. 
 
 Whoever has driven through New Eng- 
 land or the older middle States, cannot 
 doubt that there, at least, the people truly 
 love their gardens, and the house plants 
 168
 
 The Love of Flowers in America 
 
 with which their windows, in winter, are 
 stocked. Even the humblest dwelling has 
 its row of flower pots, or tin cans, well 
 filled with slips of Geranium, or other 
 bright flowers ; and the hours spent over 
 their gardens by gentlewomen who can- 
 not afford a gardener, are the best proof 
 that the affection they have for them is a 
 real and ardent one. I have known many 
 a house mother, burdened with domestic 
 cares, to rise before day to snatch an hour 
 for weeding or watering her little border, 
 that its fragrant contents might be of avail 
 for a friendly gift, or an adornment for 
 her own table. It is the rarest thing, in a 
 New England village, to enter a room in 
 summer and find no flowers disposed about 
 it ; and in the winter the eager question, 
 " How are your plants prospering ? " often 
 comes before the conventional inquiries 
 after the health of the members of the 
 household. New varieties are discussed 
 and exchanged ; there are rare Chrysan- 
 themums to talk about in autumn, and 
 choice Tulips and Hyacinths to be com- 
 plimented in the spring, and each one 
 knows what her neighbor's garden is most 
 169
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 .famous for, and who is the most success- 
 ful in her general management of her pets. 
 Many Many women are experienced botanists 
 
 ^encfdbot^ in their own locality, and can tell where 
 every wild flower of the region is to be 
 found. They rejoice, too, in the discov- 
 ery of a new weed with as much enthusi- 
 asm as an astronomer shows over a fresh 
 comet. Most of the men who live in the 
 country are too busy to give much time to 
 flower-gardens, but they show great inter- 
 est and pride in those so carefully tended 
 by their wives and daughters, and are ready 
 enough to lend a helping hand, even though 
 they may pretend to begrudge the space 
 taken from grass or vegetables, for what 
 they think it their duty to call an idle 
 diversion. But given a retired merchant 
 with not much to occupy his mind, and the 
 chances are that he will soon be wearing 
 himself out in loving labor among his 
 Rhododendrons and Roses, taking pride 
 in having the earliest and largest blossoms 
 in his parterre, and conferring in a friendly 
 way over the fence with his neighbors, who 
 stop to consult with him on the best way 
 of dealing with insect pests. Of course, 
 170
 
 The Love of Flowers in America 
 
 in the remoter West, life is too strenuous 
 
 to leave much space for flower-gardening. 
 
 Flowers are often seen growing in a little 
 
 inclosure on a frontier sheep-ranch, which 
 
 cost not only labor but self-denial, and yet 
 
 they are hardly seen once a year by any 
 
 save their owner. The care which it cost New homes 
 
 the mothers and daughters among the "* 
 
 early emigrants to transport seeds, and 
 
 slips, and roots of the old home flowers 
 
 from New England, to brighten new homes 
 
 in the West, has often been described, 
 
 and the love with which these flowers are 
 
 cherished by their descendants is well 
 
 known. 
 
 It is to these people we must look to 
 discover whether the love of flowers and 
 gardening is implanted in a people, not to 
 the wasteful and luxurious dweller in the 
 town, who only uses flowers as a pretext 
 for wanton expense. It should not be 
 forgotten that aside from this extrava- 
 gance, which may show itself in the pur- 
 chase of flowers, as in the purchase of 
 other luxuries, simply because they may 
 be rare and costly, great numbers of peo- 
 ple in the city buy flowers habitually 
 171
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 because they love their beauty and fra- 
 grance. 
 
 The common As to the nomenclature there is this to 
 *flnoersf be said : In older countries the people and 
 the flowers lived together long before the 
 botanist appeared, while here the bota- 
 nists came with the early settlers to an 
 unexplored field, found the new flowers, 
 and named them before the people had 
 become familiarly acquainted with them. 
 The State flower of California was intro- 
 duced to the children of that common- 
 wealth as the Eschscholtzia before they 
 could spell it, but this does not prove 
 any lack of love or admiration for it on 
 their part. They have a pet name for the 
 flower, too ; and in all the older settled 
 parts of the country, wherever a plant or 
 flower is so abundant, or useful, or obtru- 
 sive that there is need to speak of it, a 
 name is found at once. The children of 
 New England call the wild Columbine 
 Meeting-houses, from their shape, no 
 doubt, and with them Viola pedata is the 
 Horse Violet, perhaps from its long face. 
 The Houstonia, which is Bluets in some 
 places, is Innocence in others. In north- 
 172
 
 The Love of Flowers in America 
 
 ern New Jersey, the Marsh Marigold of 
 other regions (Caltha palu-stris) is invaria- 
 bly a Cowslip. Some children, gathering Pet na 
 Dogtooth Violets by the handful within ffi$ 
 sight of Trinity Church spire, when asked Mdre 
 the name of the flowers, expressed much 
 surprise that the inquirer had never heard 
 of Yellow-bells. Even Shortia, which hid 
 away from botanists for a hundred years, 
 had a name which was common enough 
 to answer every purpose, and the man 
 who first discovered it in any quantity 
 was told by the dwellers in the mountain 
 hamlet, where it was spreading over acres, 
 that it was nothing but Little Coltsfoot. 
 Even where botanical names have not 
 been adopted outright as common ones, 
 they have often been changed, just as 
 Pyxidanthera has become Pyxie to all the 
 dwellers among the New Jersey Pines. 
 There are plenty of common names in 
 every locality which have never found 
 their way into the botanies. 
 
 American women wear flowers for adorn- 
 ment more generally than the women of 
 any other country. This of itself is proof 
 of the genuineness of their love for flow-
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 ers. It is absurd to imagine that a custom 
 so universal is based on any sham or pass- 
 ing fashion. The desire for display is 
 prevalent enough, beyond question, but if 
 any one doubts whether the admiration 
 for flowers is an acquired taste because 
 Wearing of it is fashionable to wear them let him 
 
 anure'"" carry a handful of them through a city 
 street among groups of children, where 
 unsophisticated nature will find expres- 
 sion. The keen delight of these little 
 ones, who will always accept such a gift, 
 shows that the affection for flowers is an 
 original instinct, which is as strong in this 
 country as it is anywhere. Fashionable 
 freaks and follies pass away, and flowers 
 would have their brief day like any other 
 craze, if the regard for them was artifi- 
 cial or fictitious. The flower-dealers of 
 the country need have no apprehension 
 as to the future of their industry. It is 
 based on one of the elementary wants of 
 our nature. Flowers will be loved until 
 the constitution of the human mind is 
 radically changed. 
 
 To those writers who maintain, quoting 
 Miss Wilkins's stories to prove it, that 
 '74
 
 The Love of Flowers in America 
 
 " flowers are an accident, not a daily in- The senti 
 terest, in village life " in New England, *NEn 
 I would say that he who takes this ground 
 can scarcely be familiar with the old coun- 
 try towns of that section to which one 
 must look for the typical aspects of New 
 England life. Like all the sentiments of 
 its people, the love of flowers is there, not 
 paraded, but profoundly cherished ; and 
 if there is no gaudy display in the door- 
 yard, there is sure to be found a corner 
 behind the house, easily accessible to the 
 kitchen, where old-fashioned plants bloom 
 gayly, and are cherished often from some 
 tender association with the past. Any 
 country doctor in one of the older New 
 England villages can tell these critics that 
 there are almost no houses so homely, 
 but that he finds in them, in winter, a few 
 plants in the window, and in summer some 
 bright flowers in a tiny garden, cultivated 
 and watered often by feeble and tired 
 hands. Hard and dreary as are many of 
 the poor little lives of New England vil- 
 lagers, this one touch of color and per- 
 fume is there almost invariably, to show 
 that the thirst for beauty is unquenched.
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 New Eng- 
 land loves 
 flowers as 
 well as Old 
 England. 
 
 If, with its ungrateful soil and torment- 
 ing climate, New England cannot rival 
 Old England in the gay surroundings of 
 its cottage doors, the same love of flowers 
 is there, finding such expression as it may, 
 under the cruel conditions of a sterile 
 earth, and burning summer heats and dry- 
 ness, alternated with sharp east winds, 
 which make a labor as well as a pleasure 
 of a garden. 
 
 176
 
 XV 
 THE ROSE-CHAFER
 
 All the fields which thou dost see, 
 All the plants, belong to thee ; 
 All the summer hours produce, 
 Fertile made with early juice. 
 Man for thee doth sow and plow, 
 Farmer he, and landlord thou ! 
 
 ANACREON.
 
 XV 
 
 T however much we New Eng- Our summer 
 landers may love flowers, there tread upon 
 
 j vi v. i each other's 
 
 are drawbacks to their cultiva- heels. 
 
 tion in the pests that beset 
 them. Each plant has its enemy, and 
 there is no interim between our summer 
 visitors. No sooner is the trunk of the 
 last caterpillar packed than the rose-bug 
 arrives, bag and baggage, to take his place. 
 The half-eaten leaves that have been res- 
 cued from the jaws of the web-worm are 
 in a few hours riddled with the bites of 
 these winged pests, which are even harder 
 to destroy than their predecessors, for 
 they hunt in couples and fly, and cannot 
 be stamped out of existence. 
 
 An imperturbable imp is the rose- 
 chafer, descendant on one side from the 
 scarabaeus ; and if his Egyptian ancestor 
 was half as hard to kill as this other flying 
 beetle, no wonder the ancients used him 
 as an emblem of immortality. 
 179
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 That horrid This voracious summer boarder arrives 
 
 rose-bug. 
 
 with unpleasant punctuality upon the 
 tenth of June, that is to say, the ad- 
 vance-guard of the great army shows it- 
 self in the shape of a scout or two, who 
 merely precede the main swarm, which 
 comes in a cloud, and settles everywhere, 
 and stays nearly four weeks. 
 
 The opening roses are their nominal 
 prey, and are soon disfigured with their 
 dingy yellow-brown carcasses ; but that is 
 not the worst of them. Grape blossoms 
 are their dear delight, and nothing but the 
 most unremitting attention will save the 
 future bunches from their greedy depreda- 
 tions. There are at least two to every ra- 
 ceme of fragrant blossoms, and by the 
 time one has disposed of that pair, another 
 is flying about all ready to take their 
 places. 
 
 Arsenical Arsenical poisons have no more effect 
 "* *#- U p 0n them than a cold shoulder on an of- 
 fice-seeker. They may kill the plant, but 
 never the rose-bug, which will crawl un- 
 dismayed over its ruins, seeking new 
 worlds to conquer. Having no delicate 
 sensibilities, they are undeterred by whale- 
 180
 
 The Rose-Chafer 
 
 oil soap, which disheartens most things, They enjoy 
 and even a dusting with hellebore does 
 not even make them sneeze. The great 
 unterrified eat on, in spite of all you can 
 do to them, and no sooner is one set slain 
 than you find another in its place. They 
 remind one of the Jesuit monks in Bolivia, 
 whom the inhabitants finally regarded as 
 supernatural beings, because, no matter 
 how often one cowled and sandaled form 
 was laid low, another succeeded it, till the 
 natives came to believe that the friar was 
 an immortal, whom they vainly sought to 
 destroy. 
 
 As to the rose-bug, hand-picking into a 
 bowl of kerosene or hot water, begun at resource. 
 morn, continued till noon, and not inter- 
 mitted till dewy eve, is the safest resource 
 against the marauders, which devour not 
 only Grape blossoms and Roses, Spiraeas 
 and Syringas, Peonies and Snowballs, but 
 cover Birches, Oaks, Elms, and even Wil- 
 lows with their ugly little forms, and 
 leave behind them a lacework of veins in 
 place of leaves. 
 
 Nothing pleases them better than a 
 Smoke bush in blossom, the future fringe 
 181
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 of which they will completely destroy in 
 a few hours. We tried the experiment 
 this year of tying ours up in mosquito-net- 
 ting, but it seemed to accomplish nothing 
 better than the excitement of the curiosity 
 of passers-by, who could not make out 
 whether it was a ghost on the lawn, or a 
 balloon waiting for a Fourth of July infla- 
 tion. The indomitable chafers perched 
 on the outside by the hundred, and chewed 
 at the blossoms through the meshes, so 
 that, what with their attacks and the 
 confinement, the smoke came to nothing 
 after all, for when the cover was removed 
 nothing was to be seen of the fringe but 
 a few bare green stems. 
 
 The rose- Probably the rose-bugs do not publish 
 b Ove?aun- 3. morning paper, or they would learn that 
 healthy. ^ j awn ^ Q ver j ea j s an unhealthy situa- 
 tion for their race, and that their unprece- 
 dented mortality in that region ought to 
 be a warning to them. Certainly in the 
 height of the season the hecatomb of vic- 
 tims amounts to a thousand a day, but 
 the cry is still, They come. 
 
 We hoped that the long, cold, easterly 
 storm of June would prove a discourage- 
 182
 
 The Rose-Chafer 
 
 ment to them, but the minute it stopped They prefer 
 raining they reappeared, more numerous S. **** 
 and hearty than ever, and made up nobly 
 for lost time. They show a curious pref- 
 erence for old-fashioned Roses, and will 
 devour them, leaving a bed of hybrids of 
 modern varieties almost untouched, and 
 they never are found here on the Tea 
 Roses. They will eat the hardy Hy- 
 drangea voraciously, but do not affect the 
 Weigelia. They spoil the Snowballs, but 
 do not meddle with Lilacs. We have 
 some young Canoe Birches that are strug- 
 gling for existence, and I always imagine 
 the departing caterpillar exchanging com- 
 pliments with the arriving rose-bug, and 
 recommending them to his particular at- 
 tention, after the fashion of guzzling Jack 
 and gorging Jimmy : 
 
 Here 's little Billee, he 's young and tender, 
 They 're old and tough, so let 's eat he. 
 
 Positively, if, during three or four weeks They devour 
 of their stay, those insects were not fought 
 tooth and nail, there would not be one 
 leaf left upon those unhappy little trees. 
 As it is, when the brutes depart, the 
 183
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 Birches look like a design in skeleton 
 leaves. 
 
 This year our hopes were roused by a 
 remedy called sludgite, which was war- 
 ranted to kill, not only the rose-bug, but 
 the Colorado beetle and all other insects 
 fatal to vegetation. Though scoffed at 
 by incredulous friends, we dared to send 
 for a can of this evil-smelling mixture, and 
 applied it to the creature, with whom it 
 undoubtedly disagrees. It is made of the 
 residue of petroleum and soap, and smells 
 to heaven, but, alas ! the rose - bug has 
 no nose, at least no nose that takes 
 offense at bad odors. Sludgite is a thick, 
 semi-solid substance that mingles readily 
 with water and is applied by a spraying 
 pump or a hand syringe, and kills by con- 
 tact. The rose-bug and the Colorado 
 beetle keel over with all their heels in the 
 air as soon as the gummy fluid comes in 
 contact with their wing coverings, but, 
 curiously enough, it seems to have no 
 power to destroy the larva of the potato- 
 bug, and, not being a poison, it seems to 
 have no deterring effect upon the little 
 worm that eats the leaves of Rose bushes, 
 184
 
 The Rose-Chafer 
 
 or even upon the thrip, which whale-oil 
 soap banishes for a long time. Therefore, 
 I judge that the mixture clogs the wings, 
 and interferes with the breathing of beetles, 
 or, possibly, whatever virtue it possesses 
 lies in the volatile essence which escapes 
 from it, for the fresh mixture is much 
 more deadly than that which has stood 
 for some time. 
 
 But the sad thing about its use is, that The rose- 
 bug draws 
 
 the rose-bug is a being that draws no no moral. 
 moral from any tale, and he is totally de- 
 void of sentiment. I cannot find that the 
 corpses of his relations take away from 
 his appetite in the least. Possibly the 
 numerous attendants we see at the fune- 
 ral come for a wake, and they are full as 
 hungry and thirsty as Conn the Shaugh- 
 raun's cousins, on the same melancholy 
 occasion. 
 
 Though I am disposed to think that the 
 chafers may not be quite so ready to at- 
 tack a bush or tree freshly anointed with 
 the unsavory fluid, I am not sure but that 
 the wish is father to the thought. In any 
 case, it is not practicable to shower a bush 
 every five minutes with anything, however 
 185
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 deadly, so that it is almost as discourag- 
 ing as hand-picking. 
 Muscle A distinguished horticultural authority, 
 
 worth more i_ i 1-1 i i 
 
 than faith, who takes very little stock in my new dis- 
 coveries, declares that muscle is worth 
 more than faith, and shows me perfect 
 roses, as large as his fist, to prove it. 
 This is all very well if you are lucky 
 enough to have unlimited muscle at your 
 command, as in an arboretum for instance, 
 where every rose-bug has a man to catch 
 him, but both hand-picking and insecti- 
 cides are alike failures in a private family 
 with one factotum. What the world de- 
 mands is a warning of some kind that the 
 chafer who runs may read, a something to 
 convey to his insect-mind or nostrils the 
 information that " no rose-bug need ap- 
 ply," and whoso can make this discovery 
 palpable to the enemy will have his for- 
 tune in his red right hand. 
 
 The legends connected with the rose- 
 bug are numerous. They tell us that he 
 will not molest a Grapevine or a Rose 
 bush close against a house, though he will 
 devour the Virginia - creeper against the 
 lattice of your veranda. He is supposed 
 186
 
 The Rose-Chafer 
 
 to object to the dust of the road and to a 
 sprinkling of coal-ashes ; but on our own 
 windy hill neither of these deterrents can 
 be made to stick. 
 
 Another legend belongs to the potato- A legend. 
 beetle, which some of the farmers in this 
 neighborhood vow will not trouble pota- 
 toes planted in a hill with beans ; but 
 this is merely a legend. We have tried it, 
 and find the creatures as lively as ever. 
 
 To return to sludgite, I would say that 
 its highest practical use is upon trees and 
 shrubs without blossoms, for the sticky yel- 
 low fluid cannot be sprinkled upon roses 
 without spoiling their fairness. So far it 
 does not seem to damage foliage, but we 
 cannot answer for the effect of such a vis- 
 cid decoction if used many times a day. 
 We have never tried it more than twice in 
 twenty-four hours. It kills or drives away 
 the insects that are there, but others ap- 
 pear immediately, so that such insecticides 
 are little better than substitutes for hand- 
 picking. 
 
 Our struggles with the hated rose-bug, 
 and the hopeless nature of any prolonged 
 encounter with an inferior organism of 
 187
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 overwhelming numbers, find such clear 
 expression in the words of a correspon- 
 dent, that I subjoin an extract from a let- 
 ter of a lady who has had similar suffer- 
 ings with another insect : 
 
 Fight with " I am passing through the discourag- 
 asnaii. ' n g season o f gardening, and am realizing 
 more than ever the nature of Adam's curse. 
 It sounds like a fine thing to be told we 
 shall have dominion over the birds of the 
 air and the beasts of the field, but what 
 gain is there in that if we are to be beaten 
 in the end by the angle-worm, the ant, and 
 the snail ? To fight with a snail, and be 
 beaten, is n't that humilation ? But I stand 
 in the place of the vanquished, and it is 
 the snail that has done it. I was born 
 a sentimentalist, and had scruples about 
 ' taking away the life thou canst not give,' 
 that once hindered my career as a gar- 
 dener. Now I grieve over the imperfect 
 nature of the snail's nervous system that 
 makes even death apparently painless. 
 
 " But he keeps up with the times, does 
 
 the snail ; he reads the seed catalogues, 
 
 and he knows that Asters cost more than 
 
 Marigolds ; he has an eye for beauty, too ; 
 
 1 88
 
 The Rose-Chafer 
 
 he knows a foliage plant very early in its 
 career, and his taste is always for red 
 rather than green. 
 
 " The snail is a much underrated power ; The 
 his calmness, his persistence, his retiring 
 nature, his thick-skinned endurance, make 
 him a type that is bound to survive, and I 
 predict for him a glorious future. If he 
 can only find enough fools to cultivate 
 gardens for his use he will enter in and 
 possess the land, and develop into some- 
 thing quite grand." All of which quota- 
 tion, with slight variation, will answer for 
 our winged pest. 
 
 I was quite touched by the prediction The future 
 of a member of the horticultural society g ^ n y^ r "{ y 
 of that State, that apparently the whole of 
 southern New Jersey will have to be aban- 
 doned to the rose-bug. This adds a new 
 terror to the already complicated legisla- 
 tion of that unhappy region, for I am con- 
 vinced, from my experience, that if the 
 rose-bug wants anything he will get it, and 
 no doubt we shall live to see him sitting 
 in the gubernatorial chair. 
 189
 
 XVI 
 
 SUFFERINGS FROM DROUGHT
 
 In heat the landscape quivering lies ; 
 
 The cattle pant beneath the tree ; 
 Through parching air and purple skies, 
 
 The earth looks up in vain for thee, 
 For thee, for thee it looks in vain, 
 
 O gentle, gentle summer rain ! 
 
 W. C. BENNETT.
 
 XVI 
 
 )R are the insects the only 
 plagues which menace our cher- 
 ished gardens, and our carefully 
 planted wood-lots ; there are 
 weather conditions that no vigilance can 
 elude, which add tremendously to the dif- 
 ficulties of the planter of flower or tree. 
 
 On the south shore of Massachusetts Rainless 
 
 , , weather on 
 
 Bay almost every summer sees a long the South 
 period of rainless weather. The thunder- ^ 
 storms that gather portentously after hot 
 days, are apt to drift away to the north, 
 with only the tiniest sprinkling of our dusty 
 roads and parched fields, to pour their 
 wealth upon the crags of Swampscott and 
 Lynn, Beverly and Marblehead. With 
 jealous eyes we watch the rain descending 
 upon our opposite neighbors of the North 
 Shore, while we continue to dry up for 
 want of it. 
 
 This period of dry weather usually be- 
 193
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 Anexcep- gins about the last of June and continues 
 
 tional season. 1 1 , A i v. fc j i 
 
 well into August, which is ordinarily wet 
 and muggy, but the spring and summer of 
 1891 seemed disposed to defy precedent. 
 April, which from time immemorial has 
 been depended on for showers, this year 
 completely spoiled its record, and only 
 gave us an inch and a fraction of rain. 
 This was followed by a dry, cold May, and 
 then came the first half of June without 
 a drop, culminating in two days the like of 
 which we seldom see, the mercury touch- 
 ing ninety -seven degrees in the shade. 
 Then, at last, down came the floods with 
 a rush, and refreshed the parched and 
 thirsty earth for days, the first continued 
 rain-storm for three months, sorely needed 
 by the suffering hay-crop and the dwin- 
 dling trees. 
 
 During drought in this region, where the 
 soil is light and sandy, the care of lawns 
 and gardens has to be incessant. Fortu- 
 nately our old town has a fine supply of 
 aqueduct water brought from a nearly 
 inexhaustible pond within its limits, and 
 the hose can be brought to bear with 
 effect upon the worst places ; but this, 
 194
 
 Sufferings from Drought 
 
 like other restoratives, must be used with 
 moderation. Too much water cakes the 
 soil and draws the roots to the surface, so 
 that, once begun, it must be continued or 
 the plants die. It is better, we find, to 
 water heavily two or three times a week 
 than to keep up a continued sprinkling. 
 If the water plays upon trees and shrubs 
 during hot sunshine, the leaves are apt to 
 scorch and shrivel, and the same is true 
 of vegetables, which are well known to 
 resent being watered on a hot day. 
 
 At Overlea the garden, which lies low 
 along the edges of the meadow, can get 
 along very fairly without watering. Even 
 this year the strawberry crop, which is 
 very sensitive to a lack of moisture, did 
 not suffer from the dry weather, possibly 
 owing to heavy mulching with straw while 
 the ground was moist from showers. The 
 worst of droughts in June is never so bad 
 as the same dryness in July, for plants, 
 which are then in fullest vigor, can better 
 bear the strain upon their constitutions at 
 that time ; it gives them a set-back, how- 
 ever, which prevents a vigorous growth. 
 Grass is the greatest sufferer, and the first 
 '95
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 hay-crop is often ruined by lack of rain, 
 as was the case this year in our neighbor- 
 hood. 
 Our Cataipa Upon the sandy knoll where our house 
 
 suffers from . , r .,.,,, 
 
 changes in is situated, and especially along the street, 
 
 the weather. . 
 
 in places only accessible to a very long 
 hose, the trees and turf suffered greatly, 
 and the sudden drop of fifty degrees of 
 temperature, at the end of the period of 
 drought, had a most disastrous effect upon 
 the leaves, which shriveled and curled and 
 turned red, and dropped off in many in- 
 stances. A vigorous young Cataipa on 
 our lawn, which, after the cautious man- 
 ner of its kind, only ventured to put on its 
 spring gown after the first of June, and 
 then undertook to blossom freely, was so 
 distressed by the changes of the weather, 
 that after the storm we found at least two 
 bushels of leaves strewing the ground be- 
 neath it, and many others in such a con- 
 dition that the lightest touch would detach 
 them. Enough remained, however, to pro- 
 tect the blossoms, which are wonderful 
 productions for a tree to bear. If each 
 one grew in a garden on a single slender 
 stem one would value it for its exquisite 
 196
 
 Sufferings from Drought 
 
 painted beauty, and delicate perfume ; 
 and to find a great spike of them deco- 
 rating a burly tree is a constant source of 
 astonishment at the prodigality of Nature. 
 It is like the appearance of a fine gentle- 
 man of the last century in a ruffled shirt 
 and diamond shoe - buckles, among the 
 more plainly coated fin de siecle beaux of 
 our own day. 
 
 I have a great admiration for a Catalpa ; The parrot 
 its huge vivid green leaves give it a semi- 
 tropical air, and its sensitiveness to cold 
 and storm shows that it comes naturally 
 from a warmer clime than ours. I try to 
 console it for its exile by lending it in sum- 
 mer-time our Amazon parrot for a com- 
 panion, and there is no prettier sight than 
 the vision of this lovely green bird, of ex- 
 actly the shades of the sunlight and shadow 
 on the Catalpa leaves, pluming himself un- 
 tethered upon the inner branches, only 
 caged by the dome of the great boughs 
 with their verdant canopy. When the 
 leaves are in their prime he is perfectly 
 concealed from view by his color, even 
 when he takes a fancy to perch upon an 
 outer bough ; and there he mocks and 
 197
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 jeers at the passers-by with songs and 
 laughter and merry cries, till you would 
 think a whole primary school was let loose 
 upon the lawn and all the pupils calling 
 each other by name, or else that this was 
 a lunatic asylum. 
 
 Drought on To return to the line of trees that bor- 
 V ere! * der the street. We find that it is not safe 
 to leave them without a heavy top-dressing 
 to act as mulch, and this application hav- 
 ing been delayed this year by press of 
 business, we found one good-sized Elm, 
 that we imagined to be settled for life, 
 dropping its leaves and turning brown in 
 a most unbecoming manner, while the 
 smaller and more recently planted trees 
 were also showing signs of distress. A 
 good dousing and dressing brought them 
 all to, however, and when the mowing of 
 the swale after the rain allowed us to 
 make the rounds of the plantation, we 
 discovered that the only serious sufferers 
 were our newly set Pines, which are bring- 
 ing the hill into disrepute by their brown 
 and sear condition. This eminence natu- 
 rally suffers severely from drought and hot 
 weather; the little Oaks and Chestnuts 
 198
 
 Sufferings from Drought 
 
 burn up, and the Pines wilt distressingly, 
 but they are so numerous that there is 
 nothing to be done for them but to await 
 the survival of the fittest. An Oak once 
 rooted is rooted forever, but it is a ques- 
 tion of time as to when it can maintain 
 its top, and ours have burned off year 
 after year, until now they seem to have 
 gained vigor enough to hang on in spite 
 of fate. 
 
 Among the searching questions that are 
 put to the members of the Society of 
 Friends, in their meetings for the investi- 
 gation of personal character, one of the 
 queries is, " Has any Friend entered into 
 business beyond his ability to manage ? " 
 
 This question we are obliged to answer A meian- 
 
 , n-. . , , choly confes- 
 
 m the affirmative when we take time to sionofun- 
 ask it of ourselves, for, having outlined ' 
 work enough for a dozen men, it becomes 
 a puzzle how to carry it on with only the 
 aid of one factotum ; extra hands being 
 very hard to obtain in this village during 
 the summer months. Much that we do 
 is accordingly a makeshift. I am sadly 
 obliged to confess to the existence of 
 weeds where no weeds should be, of neg- 
 199
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 lected spaces, of trees on the hill smoth- 
 ered by grass, of rose-bugs unslain, and 
 caterpillars left at large ; of a struggle for 
 general effect, rather than a realization of 
 neatness in detail, all of which is most 
 reprehensible and melancholy. We look 
 at our neighbors' neat gardens with re- 
 morse and envy, and can only console 
 ourselves by reflecting that when they are 
 gone the weeds will have their way, but 
 that in our struggle with nature in the end 
 the trees will win, and trample the weeds 
 under their mighty feet, and rear their 
 stately heads proudly, while the beets and 
 carrots of a future generation are still 
 struggling with their yearly foes. 
 
 In a recent visit to the shores of the 
 Merrimac, I have seen hills carpeted with 
 the fallen leaves of haughty Pines that 
 have numbered some centuries of growth, 
 and I can smile at the flaunting Daisies 
 of the hill, which overtop our baby ever- 
 greens, and threaten to exterminate them. 
 Your days are numbered, O weeds ! Wave 
 now and dance in the sunshine while you 
 may, for the first nails are being driven in 
 your coffins. Little you reck that the 
 200
 
 Sufferings from Drought 
 
 small brown spines, that disappear at your A rising 
 roots, are the first drops of a rising tide 
 that is to bury your bright blossoms, and 
 strangle your weedy growth. For a few 
 years to come you may preen yourselves 
 upon the hillside, but the tiny seedlings 
 below are rising higher and higher, wider 
 spread their green arms, thicker falls the 
 brown shower, which at first nourishes 
 your gaudy uselessness, but at last shall 
 arise and overwhelm it forever. The gay 
 and trivial have their little day of sunshine 
 and triumph, but the strong roots of seri- 
 ous vigor endure when the sunlight fails, 
 and the winter winds blow. Everything in 
 the lower is typical of the higher life, and 
 the ephemeral for a time seems brighter 
 and stronger than the eternal ; but not 
 forever. Though speed may tell in a 
 short race, it is bottom that wins the long 
 ones, and it is the patient who inherit the 
 earth. 
 
 This is the great lesson of the forest, the The le 
 philosophy it plants in him who nourishes 
 it and awaits its growth. In the faint rus- 
 tle of the tiny leaflets I hear the murmur, 
 " Wait ! " and as I wander under the
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 Wait ! shade of trees a hundred years old, I hear 
 the echo far above me of that tender cry, 
 in a solemn whisper : " Wait ! They, too, 
 shall be as we are, giants in their day. 
 What matters it that thy little life will be 
 long over ? for thee the weeds and battle, 
 for others the shade and rest. Plant 
 thou ! that is thy mission, and the joy of 
 him who reaps the fruit of thy labors shall 
 be no greater than thine. Knowest thou 
 not, O thou of little faith, that to look 
 forward is the best of joys ? Thy reward 
 is renewed to thee daily in thy hope. 
 Learn patience, and content thy soul." 
 
 Counsel of And so the young trees and the old 
 rees ' alike, give counsel to him who can under- 
 stand their language, whether he bends to 
 listen to the soft voice at his feet, or lifts 
 his head to catch the diapason of the over- 
 arching forest ; encouraged by the lesson, 
 we take up our burden anew in our 
 case the burden of a watering-pot and 
 do battle with the drought with a braver 
 heart and sturdier resolution.
 
 XVII 
 THE BLESSING OF THE RAIN
 
 The garden trees are busy with the shower 
 That fell ere sunset ; now methinks they talk, 
 
 Lowly and sweetly as befits the hour, 
 One to another down the grassy walk. 
 
 Hark ! the laburnum from his opening flower 
 This cheery creeper greets in whisper light, 
 While the grim fir, rejoicing in the night, 
 
 Hoarse mutters to the murmuring sycamore. 
 
 What shall I deem their converse ? Would they 
 hail 
 
 The wild gray light that fronts yon massive cloud, 
 Or the half bow rising like pillared fire ? 
 Or are they sighing faintly for desire 
 
 That with May dawn their leaves may be o'er- 
 flowed, 
 
 And dews about their feet may never fail ? 
 
 ARTHUR HALLAM.
 
 XVII 
 
 EFRESHING, indeed, are the 
 long storms that succeed these 
 burning days ; and it is a joy to 
 see the thirsty grass and plants 
 drinking in life with every drop. I am 
 convinced that the true way to render 
 yourself indifferent to inclement weather 
 in the country is to plant trees. No rain 
 can ever hurt them, and, when they are 
 freshly set out, each shower is a satisfac- 
 tion to their owner, for it seems as if they 
 could be seen to grow under its kindly in- 
 fluence, and thus a day or week of hard 
 rain, instead of a weariness, becomes a 
 positive delight. I am not sure that this 
 would bring compensation to the young 
 for having to forego their active pleasures, 
 but the more I become interested in gar- 
 dening the more I am convinced that it is 
 the appropriate pleasure for middle life 
 and old age. 
 
 205
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 Gardening Youth hates to wait for anything, and 
 wishes to realize its dreams so soon as 
 they are conceived ; but as we advance in 
 years we take a sober satisfaction in wait- 
 ing a little for our pleasures, and also we 
 like something that can recur, and that is 
 interminable. Most other delights once 
 experienced are exhausted, but gardening 
 grows by what it feeds on. It is the same, 
 and yet never the same ; it can be forever 
 renewed ; it can be indefinitely extended ; 
 it is within the reach of all dwellers in the 
 country, where home amusements are most 
 needed. It can be compassed by the 
 slenderest purse, and it will give a man a 
 chance to spend a fortune if he so desire. 
 It has its agreeable economies, and its fas- 
 cinating extravagances. It can be made 
 to satisfy the most orderly dispositions, 
 and also return beauty and grace from 
 careless and wild arrangements. It can 
 be utilitarian and lucrative, it can be 
 merely aesthetic and ornamental, or all 
 four, just as the fancy takes you. In fact 
 it may be briefly characterized as happi- 
 ness for the million, with no patent on it. 
 Added to all these charms is its whole- 
 206
 
 TJ}e Blessing of the Rain 
 
 someness, its absorbing character, and, 
 best of all, a certain humanness about the 
 occupation that brings one into pleasant 
 relations with all sorts of people, and af- 
 fords one a topic of conversation and a 
 meeting-ground, even where he is limited 
 to the most unpromising companions. The 
 village crone forgets her gossip when you 
 talk to her about her Rose bushes, or her 
 last new Geranium slip ; the farmer waxes 
 eloquent over the merits of a new potato, 
 or a way of protecting melons, and you 
 find yourself always interested and in- 
 structed, instead of bored, since almost 
 any one you meet in the country can tell 
 you something you are glad to know; or 
 else he is eager to learn what you are do- 
 ing yourself, which is a sure way to afford 
 you entertainment, since every man is 
 happy when allowed to ride his own 
 hobby. All of which has a connection 
 with rain, however little obvious it may be, 
 since the moral of my discourse is, that 
 when one becomes not only resigned to 
 rain but glad of it, he has taken a step 
 toward true philosophy. 
 
 A garden after a shower has always an 
 207
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 Beauty of a especial charm ; everything is sweeter and 
 g a*how?r ter fresher, even in its often bedraggled con- 
 dition. I have a passion for dabbling in 
 water-coloring of this description, and can- 
 not keep my hands from the weeds and 
 flowers, when I venture forth to see how 
 my favorites have borne the storm. It is 
 a delight to put one's arms about a boun- 
 cing peony, with its red cheeks all cold 
 and dripping, and tie a string around it 
 to keep its bright faces clean. The for- 
 ward flowers kiss you as you struggle to 
 encircle them ; the wet leaves box your 
 ears, as if you were taking a liberty. It is 
 some time before you can accomplish your 
 purpose, and you arise from the encounter 
 quite breathless and dripping, with the 
 pink and white faces, huddled up together, 
 all laughing at your condition. 
 
 It is June, and the last of the Fleur-de-lis 
 are quite broken down, their pearly petals 
 draggled in mud and defaced by water. 
 This delicate French beauty will put up 
 with no plebeian touch, but withers and 
 dies if brought in contact with the earth. 
 The Roses stand up, after their bath, quite 
 fresh and shining, but the buds, which are 
 208
 
 The Blessing of the Rain 
 
 so blighted by a heavy rain that they do 
 not open afterward, remind me of the Aus- 
 trian violinist in " A Week in a French 
 Country House," who greatly admired an 
 English beauty, but confided to a friend 
 his reason for not offering to marry her : 
 
 " She vould vash me, and I should 
 die." 
 
 Many things are broken down and re- 
 quire tying up. If the rain has continued 
 for several days the chickweeds are ram- 
 pant, and overrun everything. New plants 
 that have been on the anxious seat during 
 the dry weather have decided to stay, and 
 are putting forth satisfactory leaves. 
 
 The joyful Pear-trees shake their drops The cat-bird 
 down upon you, the cat-bird sits on the 
 grape trellis and inquires what you are do- 
 ing there. It is a way he has. He lives 
 in the Box arbor, and thinks he owns the 
 earth, and that our strawberries are his. 
 He scolds the cat, and defies the robin, 
 and has such a trig, gentlemanly air about 
 him, with his well-brushed dark coat, that 
 one might christen him Sir Charles Gran- 
 dison. He makes me a bow, and says 
 civil things (or uncivil) in his own tongue, 
 209
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 which, unfortunately, I do not under- 
 stand. 
 
 " I thought you told me this parrot 
 could talk ? " 
 
 " So he can ze parrot lankwich 
 you don't expect all ze lankwiches for ten 
 tollar, do you ? " 
 
 Thus our cat-bird, which costs us no- 
 thing but strawberries, discourses in a jar- 
 gon which we would fain comprehend, so 
 as to answer him according to his deserts ; 
 and sometimes of a Sunday morning he 
 sings us a glorious tune. 
 
 When the rain comes, Apollo, the par- 
 rot, climbs to the top of the tree in which 
 he is perched, and spreads all his bright 
 feathers to catch the shower. Elongating 
 his wings, he makes them meet over his 
 brow in the very attitude of the cherubim, 
 and then, turning a somersault, he hangs 
 head downward, that the water may thor- 
 oughly drench his plumage. With all his 
 gold, and red, and green glittering with 
 raindrops, he resembles some superb 
 blossom quivering on a stem, and makes 
 a beautiful spectacle of himself. When 
 his bath is done he chatters and laughs 
 210
 
 The Blessing of the Rain 
 
 with glee, and sings his merriest song, with 
 some disregard of rhythm and tune, but 
 none of harmony, till all the smaller birds 
 begin to pipe in company. 
 
 The dusty foliage emerges brilliantly New birth 
 shining and fresh. Every shower seems raiZ." 
 to bring a new spring, and the world never 
 fails to be surprised at the renovation 
 which succeeds the rain. There seem, in- 
 deed, to be new heavens and a new earth. 
 The drooping evergreens lift up their tas- 
 seled heads and take courage ; to them 
 it means life and new hope. The vines 
 throw out their tendrils, and the Honey- 
 suckle emits a keener perfume. The white 
 Lilies that come to rejoice us just as the 
 Roses are going, gleam in the twilight, tall 
 and fair. Who falsely says that it is merely 
 a license of the poets to mingle Roses and 
 Lilies, since they do not blossom at the 
 same time ? With us the Irises and the 
 white Flower de Luce linger till after 
 the Roses are in bloom, and then, before 
 the queen is wholly out of sight, come The flower 
 these stately princesses, her followers, like ' 
 train-bearers of high degree, all clad in 
 white and gold, nearest the throne, if not 
 211
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 rivals for the .' ighest place of all. Is it 
 the thorns that make the Rose the royal 
 flower, by rendering her difficult of ac- 
 cess, and surrounding her with a body- 
 guard of lances ? Who shall say ? There 
 are moods in which her sumptuous beauty 
 and heavy fragrance seem less regal than 
 the haughty, willowy grace of her rival 
 flower, and we hesitate to choose. 
 
 And not the flowers alone rejoice in the 
 life-giving drops, but the " sweet smale 
 grass," refreshed and strengthened, lifts 
 its green blades like the spear-heads of a 
 rising army. The dusty mantle that has 
 veiled its gentle beauty falls from it, and 
 the wonderful variation of its tints again 
 delights the eye. Those artists who set 
 our teeth on edge with verdigris and 
 arsenic floods, to represent this dearest 
 and homeliest garment of our mother 
 earth, seem to me never to have entered 
 into and possessed its secret, the secret 
 of myriad shadows, of myriad lights, each 
 catching a reflection from its neighbor 
 blade, the brown earth below, the azure 
 sky above. No greenest green of foliage 
 or meadow ever shocks the most sensitive
 
 The Blessing of the Rain 
 
 vision, for Nature, truest of painters, never Nature 
 fails to break her colors with such subtle 
 mixtures, that only the utmost training of 
 eye and hand enables the artist to hint 
 her secret upon canvas ; and he who, with 
 a palette of crude pigments of raw pri- 
 mary colors, seeks to render the shifting 
 emerald of spring, the topaz of the new- 
 mown field, or the gold of harvest, is as 
 one who would catch the flash of the dia- 
 mond, or the burning heart of the ruby, on 
 the brush's point, and think to imprison it 
 forever. 
 
 There are some lines of Matthew Ar- 
 nold that a wet garden always brings to 
 mind, in which the poet has truly caught 
 the spirit of the fragrant scene. None 
 but a frequenter and true lover of gardens 
 could, in a few words, have thus pictured 
 the mingled dismay and hope with which 
 one views his garden-plot after a rain has 
 both distressed and refreshed it : 
 
 So, some tempestuous morn in early June, 
 When the year's primal burst of bloom is o'er, 
 
 Before the roses and the longest day 
 When garden-walks, and all the grassy floor 
 
 With blossoms, red and white, of fallen May, 
 And Chestnut-flowers are strewn 
 213
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 The garden So have I heard the cuckoo's parting cry, 
 
 in the rain. From the wet field through the vext garden 
 
 trees 
 Come, with the volleying rain and tossing 
 
 breeze ; 
 The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go I ! 
 
 Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go ? 
 Soon will the high Midsummer pomps come on, 
 
 Soon will the musk carnations break and swell, 
 Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon, 
 
 Sweet-william with his homely cottage smell, 
 
 And stocks in fragrant blow ; 
 Roses that down the alleys shine afar, 
 
 And open, jasmine-muffled lattices, 
 
 And groups under the dreaming garden trees, 
 And the full moon, and the white evening star. 
 214
 
 XVIII 
 DISCO URA CEMENTS
 
 Even now the devastation is begun, 
 And half the business of destruction done. 
 GOLDSMITH. 
 
 O rivers, forests, hills, and plains ! 
 Oft have ye heard my cantie strains ; 
 But now, what else for me remains 
 But tales of woe ? 
 
 ROBERT BURNS.
 
 XVIII 
 
 JHERE are other things beside Gardening 
 drought to depress the spirits 
 of the planter, who has often 
 reason to wonder why he en- 
 tered upon his disheartening career. 
 
 It was, I believe, Sir George Cornewall 
 Lewis who declared that life would be a 
 very enjoyable thing were it not for its 
 pleasures, which is convincing proof that 
 he must at some time or other have inter- 
 ested himself in gardening, since this pur- 
 suit, which at first seems, of all others, the 
 most gentle and enticing, leads the un- 
 wary dilettante from woe to woe before it 
 has done with him. 
 
 As soon as our forest is tall enough to 
 show above it, we are talking of erecting 
 an arch at its most obvious point of en- 
 trance, with the appropriate inscription, 
 
 Abandon hope, all ye who enter here ! 
 
 our experience leading us to think that 
 
 217
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 the only way to enjoy a prospective wil- 
 derness is to find one's blessedness in 
 being among the happy few who expect 
 nothing, and therefore can never have any 
 but agreeable surprises. This arch, which 
 perhaps will more appropriately take the 
 form of a lich-gate, is to be sculptured 
 with high reliefs of the woodchuck and 
 the field mouse, while the rose-bug and 
 the wire-worm are to find a prominent 
 place in the general decoration. This 
 architectural step has been suggested by 
 the appearance of a new enemy, which 
 has destroyed the last vestige of our confi- 
 dence in conifers, and is a new proof of 
 that perversity in trees to which I have 
 before reluctantly called attention. 
 Trouble Early in July we noticed a tendency to 
 
 p'/ftesf the droop in the leaders of some of the Pines 
 and Spruces, but concluded it might be 
 the dry hot weather which had affected 
 their uprightness. A week or two more 
 passed, and the new tassels of the year's 
 growth all began to turn yellow, and to 
 hang down disconsolately. We then sup- 
 posed that some one in passing might 
 have given the tops of the little trees an 
 218
 
 Discouragements 
 
 unfriendly twitch, from which they were Trees in 
 suffering ; but as the days went by and a troubu ' 
 stout little Norway Spruce near the house 
 began to lose its topknot, and Episcopus 
 himself showed a bad droop in his mitre, 
 we thought it worth while to look into the 
 matter more closely, so we chopped off 
 the head of one of the sufferers, and gave 
 it a post-mortem examination. Dissec- 
 tion revealed ravages, and the fatal secret 
 was out. There was a worm at the core ! 
 
 And not one worm, but many, small, 
 white, plump and persevering, indifferent 
 to resin, and coolly tunneling their way 
 down the inside of the stem toward the 
 ground. Certain leaks on the outside, 
 and port-holes of their own construction, 
 showed the exact length to which they 
 had gone, so that by cutting just where 
 these signs disappeared, we had the satis- 
 faction of ending the earthly career of the 
 leading invader, by snipping his fat un- 
 pleasant carcass neatly in two. 
 
 We pursued our insidious foe from tree A* insidious 
 
 to tree with the shears, and beheaded him 
 
 with great slaughter. But, alas ! it was 
 
 only a realization of the old nursery sneer, 
 
 219
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 about cutting off your nose to spite your 
 face, for when we had decapitated the 
 worm, we left a headless tree to serve as 
 his monument, and, in some cases, the 
 wretched little monster compelled the 
 destruction of three years' slow growth. 
 A fly offer- The parent of the worm, being a fly of 
 ambition and taste, invariably picked out 
 the biggest and showiest of the poor little 
 struggling trees to lay her eggs in, so that 
 after the day of judgment was over, and 
 the ins(ect)urrection crushed, our pride 
 was crushed with it, for the borer, not 
 being, alack ! the baseless fabric of a vis- 
 ion, left an awful wrack behind, both of 
 our Pines and our vainglory. 
 
 Small comfort do we find in the assur- 
 ance that the Pines will be none the 
 worse for topping, for, with a life and trees 
 so short as ours, " a few years " are not 
 to be lightly regarded, and the poor hill 
 had precious little good looks to lose, and 
 has been waiting for its beauty already 
 quite long enough. Moreover, what assur- 
 ance can we have that every summer will 
 not bring with it fresh devastation ? It 
 takes a year or two for insects to find you 
 220
 
 Discouragements 
 
 out ; but their first call is never their last. 
 If the borers have intelligence of the exist- 
 ence of Pines on " Doctor's Hill," they 
 will come again as sure as the tax-col- 
 lector, and new woes are in store for us 
 from their visitations. 
 
 Moved by that desire to find consola- 
 tion in our neighbor's ills, to which 
 Rochefoucauld cynically alludes, we go 
 about spying at the tops of other people's 
 evergreens, and find that this is the borer's 
 year. Driving, a few days since, in a 
 neighboring village, I saw, with concern, 
 a long row of tall Norway Spruces at least 
 forty feet high, that inclose a public gar- 
 den, all suffering from the attacks of our 
 fell marauder. Luckily, their tops will 
 hardly be missed, while ours Wae 's 
 me ! as Carlyle would moan. 
 
 Now the question arises, Is there any 
 prevention as well as cure for this inflic- 
 tion ? Is there any application obnoxious 
 to the borer's mamma that can be put 
 where she would lay her eggs, and so 
 induce her to move on ? Has she any 
 avowed distaste for whale-oil soap, or coal- 
 tar, or kerosene emulsion, or any other un- 
 
 221
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 pleasant odor ? And if there is such a 
 deterrent, where should it be applied 
 on the very top of the leader, or at the 
 place where the new shoots start from the 
 old year's growth ? 
 
 Danger When a person sets out to plant a tree 
 end"**/ or two he scarcely bargains for having the 
 gardening. stu( jy o entomology thrown in, with a 
 course of chemistry into the bargain, not 
 to mention toxicology, and the trade of 
 wholesale murder, until he might as well 
 begin the career of gardener by serving 
 an apprenticeship to the 'Czar of Russia. 
 I am horrified by the bloodthirstiness de- 
 veloped by this seemingly innocent diver- 
 sion ; still, this but confirms the view of 
 pleasures before quoted. Indeed I am not 
 sure but there is an opening for an essay 
 on the Dangerous Moral Tendencies of 
 Gardening. The only objection to it is, 
 that if the Legislature of Massachusetts 
 got wind of such a thing it would pass 
 a law which might prove inconvenient. 
 There are advantages in having your 
 morals legislated about by a paternal, not 
 to say puritanically paternal, government, 
 but there are drawbacks also one does
 
 Discouragements 
 
 not always wish to be virtuous by act of 
 Parliament. Still, if the legislation can be 
 brought to bear upon worms, we will not 
 complain. 
 
 An eminent Philadelphia physician, vis- 
 iting Boston, was struck with an inscrip- 
 tion in the Public Garden, " Dogs forbid- 
 den to swim in this pond on Sunday," 
 and remarked that he knew that education 
 had been carried to an advanced stage in 
 Massachusetts, but he had not learned be- 
 fore that even the dogs had been taught 
 to read ! How delighted we should be 
 to learn that the gypsy moth has been 
 warned off by the General Court. So far 
 we of the South Shore have been left to 
 cope, somewhat ineffectively, I admit, with 
 our own insects, but if the famous moth 
 finds us out we may expect the govern- 
 ment myrmidons at its heels, and let us 
 hope that they will carry the web-worms 
 with them. But a commission ramping 
 about the fields, even for so praiseworthy 
 a purpose, has its terrors. 
 
 Another discouragement comes in the 
 worm which saws off the small branches 
 of the Oaks, and leaves the ground strewn 
 223
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 with twigs, as after a storm ; but that su- 
 percilious insect disdains trees the size of 
 ours, and he is still to be anticipated. 
 
 Upon some of the dwarf evergreens 
 we have discovered a white scale insect, 
 something like a mealy-bug, which covers 
 the trunks and branches with its white 
 spots, but that seems to yield to the dis- 
 suasive effects of soap and water, and 
 disappears after a good scrubbing. 
 
 The Hemlocks are to be watched with 
 a new anxiety, since the newspapers tell 
 us of a worm that is destroying the foliage 
 and killing the timber in Potter County, 
 Pennsylvania. This creature infests the 
 trees in great quantities, to the dismay of 
 the lumbermen, who are unable to destroy 
 them. It is hard enough to persuade a 
 Hemlock to grow, any way, but if a beast 
 is lying in wait to devour it, we may as 
 well give up altogether. I am told that 
 there is a book as big as the Bible, pub- 
 lished by the Agricultural Department in 
 Washington, about nothing in the world 
 but the insects injurious to forest-trees, 
 which seems enough to discourage the 
 planters, even of a wood that can be cov- 
 224
 
 Discouragements 
 
 ered by a pocket-handkerchief, like our A giant 
 own ; but, to crown all, we rashly took 
 Brobdingnagian in the tree-line to walk in 
 our Lilliput one day a Brobdingnagian 
 to whom the largest Elm in Hingham is 
 but a walking-stick and, looking down 
 upon our three-inch Oaks, he complained 
 that there were not trees enough ! Lucus 
 a non lucendo fancy a forest with that de- 
 ficiency ! Having, moreover, discovered 
 that our favorite Beeches were Black 
 Birches, he contrived to impress us with 
 the fact that the best of our forest was 
 the prospect, and that, when the trees 
 were grown, we should not even have 
 that ! That Brobdingnagian was a terror ! 
 Luckily he had not much daylight to see 
 the place in, or we should never have the 
 courage to go on, for wherever we had a 
 good-sized tree he advised that it should 
 be cut down, and if there was a square 
 inch of territory without a seedling he 
 thought it would be a good plan to put in 
 a handful ; and he even showed a disposi- 
 tion to discredit our crack story about a 
 yield of forty bushels in the palmy days 
 of our great Pear-tree, Methusaleh, but 
 225
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 He takes 
 
 tribute. 
 
 A vista in- 
 sisted upon. 
 
 that may have been because we tried to 
 make him believe they were barrels. 
 
 So much for taking a Man-Mountain 
 into Lilliput. I would not have trusted 
 that one alone upon the premises with a 
 pair of scissors, for there is nothing less 
 to be depended on than the cutting mania. 
 Granted that one ultimately accepts the 
 situation, the moment when your tree 
 comes down is always one of anguish. It 
 takes so long to grow, and is so easily de- 
 stroyed. Our Brobdingnagian took his toll 
 at last, for he pointed out the fact that the 
 flourishing little Elm I have been cherish- 
 ing to shade the seat in the Box-arbor 
 from the noonday heat, was really injur- 
 ing the Box and should come down, which 
 it did forthwith, as a tribute to his supe- 
 rior knowledge, a nice tree, too, that it 
 would take ten years and more to grow 
 again. 
 
 We have another disturbing visitor who 
 insists upon a vista, which involves the 
 sacrifice of a fine clump of Lilacs and 
 Buckthorn, that shuts off a view of the 
 northern part of the place. We are dis- 
 posed to think that it would be an im- 
 226
 
 Discouragements 
 
 provement to get a glimpse of the great 
 Elm-trunk and the green grass beyond; 
 but, suppose we do not like it when the 
 bushes are down, what then ? 
 
 Even given on his part the best artistic 
 perception, does it follow that another 
 man's views of what you ought to like 
 always suit your own ? 
 
 May it not perhaps be wiser to work 
 out your own problems in your own way ? 
 Human nature is so constituted that it 
 yearns for authority, and when it gets 
 authority it chafes thereat, and each man 
 cherishes his own unwisdom as dearer 
 than the knowledge of another. Such con- 
 trary beings are we that it is always what 
 we have not that seems the greater bless- 
 ing, and we seldom know when we are 
 well off. The hardest state of mind to 
 attain is content, and so little do we know 
 the essence of happiness, that finding the 
 contented man, we forthwith compassion- 
 ate him for his lack of ambition, or gird at 
 him for supineness, and pride ourselves 
 upon our own divine unrest. 
 
 Even thus do the educating influences 
 of the garden lead us round to philoso- 
 227
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 phy, and the vista through the bushes 
 opens out a moral perspective. 
 
 It is only by what we suffer that we 
 learn what is worth while, and, judging by 
 the amount of suffering our amateur gar- 
 dening gives us, we ought in time to have 
 the wisdom of Solomon, which, ranging 
 from the Cedar of Lebanon to the Hyssop 
 on the wall, must have given him a good 
 deal to undergo. No wonder that he dis- 
 covered that "all is vanity." Probably it 
 was borne in upon him by finding a borer 
 in his own pet Cedar, or a caterpillar crawl- 
 ing over the remains of his last Hyssop. 
 
 We, struggling along after that illustri- 
 ous gardener of Israel, have at least mas- 
 tered one lesson, the important one that 
 Nature, the rudest of task - mistresses, 
 takes pains early to impress upon her 
 pupils, sternly reiterating, 
 
 I teach by killing, let the others learn ! 
 228
 
 XIX 
 A WATER GARDEN
 
 Little streams have flowers a many, 
 Beautiful and fair as any ; 
 Typha strong, and green bur-seed ; 
 Willow-herb with cotton-seed ; 
 Arrowhead with eye of jet, 
 And the water violet. 
 There the flowering-bush you meet, 
 And the plumy meadow sweet, 
 And in places deep and stilly, 
 Marble-like, the water lily. 
 
 MARY HOWITT.
 
 XIX 
 
 O long as our friends profit by The order 
 
 . . , of planting. 
 
 our mistakes, and gam the re- 
 sult of our experience, we have 
 a compensation for our failures ; 
 but let me give this bit of advice to the 
 would-be gardener : if one is unable to se- 
 cure ample assistance, and is obliged to 
 develop a place slowly, the order of plant- 
 ing should be trees first, shrubs second, 
 flowers last of all. 
 
 Trees may be considered as the skele- 
 ton, the framework upon which the whole 
 scheme is constructed, giving it strong 
 substantial outlines and decisive meaning. 
 Shrubbery plays the part of muscles and 
 flesh, covering the unsightly bare places, 
 rounding out the form, supplying the essen- 
 tial, and giving grace and symmetry to the 
 inclosure ; while flowers may be regarded 
 as the clothing with which the completed 
 body is finally adorned. Naturally, one 
 231
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 cannot resist sticking in a few flowers as 
 he goes along, but their disposition is not 
 final, and they take up a deal of time, and 
 are, consequently, to be relegated to a 
 subordinate place at first, and looked for- 
 ward to as the occupation reserved for 
 those future unemployed hours when the 
 woody plants can be left to grow, and ful- 
 fill their mission. 
 
 e neglect Here, where the watering during sum- 
 flowers. mer ^ an( j f re q uent digging about and top- 
 dressing, to retain moisture, are absolutely 
 essential to trees and shrubs, flowers that 
 have to be weeded and tended are much 
 neglected, and only those hardy perennials 
 that will take care of themselves and defy 
 weeds, have as yet any kind of a show. 
 But we are always dreaming of a period 
 when the ligneous plants can be let alone, 
 and we can turn our attention seriously to 
 the purely ornamental. 
 
 In the mean time, such wild things as 
 come up of their own accord, on the hill 
 and in the meadow, are full of interest, 
 particularly in early spring and in late 
 August, when the stock of hardy garden- 
 flowers runs comparatively low. 
 232
 
 A Water Garden 
 
 At the latter period the little spot that Frogs 
 I call my water garden is really quite a &*. 
 sight for such a humble affair, a mere 
 mud-hole as it were, formed by a spring 
 at the foot of the hill, which makes a tiny 
 frog-pond, about ten feet or less in diame- 
 ter. The frogs themselves are quite orna- 
 mental, wearing, as they do, the most gor- 
 geous yellow and green coats, and being 
 quite sociable and friendly, ready to sit 
 on a chip and croak when we pay them 
 a visit, and making music for us in the 
 spring before the birds are fairly abroad. 
 The old bull-frog, with a hoarse cold, is 
 not always a comfort, for he has a way of 
 coughing at night, like an asthmatic old 
 gentleman, that is sometimes distressing, 
 if you lie awake to listen, for it makes you 
 sure his family must be anxious about him ; 
 but the piping little ones have quite a 
 cheerful note, which blends agreeably with 
 the chirpings of the grasshoppers. 
 
 On the marshy banks of the little pool, 
 which cannot comfortably be reached with- 
 out overshoes, some slim Willows are 
 bravely growing, which I fear will some 
 day make it too shady for the flowers, but 
 233
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 at present they serve to give the spot a 
 cosy and protected air, and the sunlight 
 shifts through the light foliage, and falls 
 kindly on the bright group of blossoms 
 that make it so gay at the end of summer. 
 wad flow- The pool is close to an old gray fence, 
 POOL over which the wild vines clamber, and 
 
 against which the Milkwort, with its stiff 
 stems and smooth leaves, stands up erect, 
 its panicled pink blossom a-top ; not a 
 very choice plant, but a sturdy one, and 
 the vivid color " carries " well against the 
 green, and composes agreeably with the 
 masses of Arrowheads that are at this 
 season full of blossoms and tall-stemmed 
 sharp leaves, like a group of Amazons 
 with their shafts drawn to the ear. 
 
 At the edge of the pool a mass of 
 sedges has been left unmown, and here 
 are clumps of the creamy blossoms of 
 the wild Foxglove, mixed with all sorts of 
 Goldenrod, and some budding Asters, 
 while the flowers of the Grasses are them- 
 selves beautiful and various in their own 
 quiet way, some with plumes and some 
 with spears, as if ready to oppose the Ar- 
 rowheads. 
 
 234
 
 A Water Garden 
 
 The wild Caraway and the Yarrow 
 show white among the grass, and there is 
 a wonderful rosy hue in the tall spikes of 
 Dock that are blooming near by. The 
 Forget-me-nots are still full of blue blos- 
 soms, and spread out into the water far 
 and wide, the earliest to come and the 
 last to go of all the simple ornaments of 
 the water garden. 
 
 But the glory of the pool is the Cardi- 
 
 r L j i j i_- 1. i-r bulbs a/aii- 
 
 nal-flower, of rich dark red, which lifts ure. 
 its bracted racemes proudly, and with the 
 dignity of a true hierarch. This shows to 
 advantage for the first time this year, hav- 
 ing before fallen a victim to the careless 
 scythe, so that its blossoms, which it per- 
 sisted in putting forth in spite of discour- 
 agements, were only a few inches high. 
 But this summer no mower was allowed 
 to come within six feet of the spot, and 
 we are well rewarded by the glow and 
 stateliness of this superb flower, which 
 would be an ornament to the proudest 
 parterre. The Water-lily bulbs that we 
 got from a nursery in the spring have 
 proved a failure, whether because they 
 were planted too deep in the mud or be- 
 235
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 cause the bulbs were defective, it is im- 
 possible to say. It may be that the spring 
 is too cold for them, and that they require 
 the warmer water of a pond ; but they 
 should not be difficult to raise, for I saw 
 a pink Water-lily blossoming this summer 
 A rocky in a rocky pool, with nothing to grow in 
 but the ball of rich mud in which it had 
 been tightly packed before being gently 
 laid in its stony bed. The picturesque 
 pool is a feature of a small terraced gar- 
 den, built out from the rocky side of a 
 steep hill that descends abruptly to the 
 seashore of Massachusetts Bay. The ter- 
 race is approached from the level on 
 which the house above it is built, by a 
 rough stone stairway, that has for a balus- 
 trade a huge granite boulder, overgrown 
 with Ivy, and surmounted with trees. 
 Great rocks inclose the terrace on three 
 sides, and down the almost perpendicular 
 face of one of them trickles the thread-like 
 stream that falls into the pool below. The 
 overflow wanders away in a small grassy 
 channel, along the edge of which tiny 
 water-plants grow, and Cardinal -flowers 
 blossom. In the basin a pink Water-lily 
 236
 
 A Water Garden 
 
 is blooming, dainty dweller in a fairy home, 
 and somewhere in the shadows a goldfish 
 has a lurking - place. On the stone curb 
 a blue jug, and a Japanese drinking- vessel 
 formed of a shell, with a handle of bam- 
 boo, give the requisite touch of human 
 needs and uses to this lonely dell. 
 
 The little green-turfed terrace is encir- A tiny ter~ 
 cled with flowers that thrive in this warm ra " 
 nook, where the morning sun shines hotly, 
 and where its southwestern rays are tem- 
 pered by the shade of great forest-trees. 
 So steep is the hill that the shining waters 
 of the ocean are seen through the topmost 
 branches of tall Oaks and Hornbeams 
 and Pines, while others stand far below. 
 The brown seedy spike of a Dock-plant 
 hangs out against the lichened crag, and 
 forms a spot of rich color amid the pre- 
 vailing gray, while all about, from crevices 
 in the rocks, and from shady recesses be- 
 neath them, spring Ferns and Grasses, 
 with wild flowers and picturesque weeds. 
 Some young Sassafras - trees, or rather 
 bushes, near by, which have sprung up 
 of their own accord, have a particularly 
 pleasing effect with their yellow -green 
 237
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 leaves, and down the face of the rock 
 ' straggles a Blackberry-vine, as perfect in 
 outline and graceful in sweep as if it had 
 been drawn by the hand of a Japanese ar- 
 tist, each cluster of finely serrated leaves 
 having a distinct value against the mottled 
 stony background, which also gives a fine 
 relief to the groups of flowers and ferns 
 that cluster at the base of the pool. 
 
 In such a situation nothing showy 
 should find place, but only those things 
 which might naturally grow around a for- 
 est-spring. The little Cresses along the 
 brook, the tender Forget-me-nots, the fine 
 small Grasses, the water-weeds and ruby 
 Lobelia, that have been wisely set here to 
 enjoy the moisture, add to the wildwood 
 charm of the pool with its tinkling water. 
 A Japanese Taste has gone hand in hand with na- 
 ture anc j p roc j UC ed a lovely picture, deli- 
 cate in detail, fine in color and grouping, 
 harmonious in general composition. Mi- 
 nute the space is, almost, as a Japanese 
 garden, but the effect is dignified and po- 
 etic. It is not mere prettiness that charms, 
 but the true artistic feeling with which the 
 idea has been conceived and executed. 
 238
 
 A Water Garden 
 
 The little scene touches and captivates, 
 while gratifying all the senses with sound 
 and sight and color, and soft touch of 
 ocean breezes and of waving leaves. 
 
 Another feature of the picture is a A second 
 second semicircular terrace below, with 
 Clematis-clad wall, to which one clambers 
 by another flight of steps hewn in the 
 rock to find more flowers, and more lovely 
 weeds and grasses, and a second space of 
 well mown turf, with a fine outlook on the 
 tossing sea. From this a rugged path 
 leads by devious ways to the beach below, 
 where are boats and a yacht riding at an- 
 chor, and the wide stretch of the great 
 deep, with white sails upon the surface 
 and whiter clouds overhead. These ter- 
 races form a bit of artistic naturalness 
 that would enchant even a critic from the 
 Flowery Kingdom, and they were the re- Result ofe. 
 suit of a charming woman's skillful plan- ^ s ^ a " s 
 ning, and fine sense of the picturesque. 
 
 But, returning to our own water garden, 
 we find higher up the bank the Hawk- 
 weed showing its yellow stars waving on 
 slender stems, and the Prunella displaying 
 its stiff blue clusters, while more Asters 
 239
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 blossom, and tufts of Goldenrod cling to 
 the hillside, and entice us to a climb 
 among the Pines. 
 
 Here we find that the dry summer has 
 made havoc. Of thirty-five planted in 
 April we shall barely save a dozen. This 
 is discouraging, but we have gone bravely 
 to work to set some more, and try whether 
 August skies will be more propitious in 
 the way of rain. We have also put in a 
 few Savins, though we hear they take un- 
 kindly to transplanting. 
 
 Condition of The little Oaks and Maples have 
 titekii" n thriven, and are showing green against the 
 already withering grass. The soil is yearly 
 improving by letting it lie fallow, and the 
 foot sinks into the soft cushion the uncut 
 hay is making as a covering for the sand 
 and gravel. If it were not for endanger- 
 ing the seedlings, quite a crop could be 
 harvested. It is not soil the hill lacks 
 so much as rain ; but the long drought 
 parches and distresses the plantation, and 
 will do so till the trees can shade the 
 ground and preserve its moisture. 
 
 The small Chestnut group of which I 
 boasted in the spring has made very little 
 240
 
 A Water Garden 
 
 progress, and hardly looks larger than it 
 did last summer. Insects injured the 
 early growth, and there was no later 
 growth for lack of rain. But the trees 
 are alive and healthy, so that we have 
 something to be thankful for. Our one 
 Mulberry-tree bore fruit plentifully, but 
 failed to make much leaf-way. None of 
 these trees were either top-dressed or wa- 
 tered, or they would have done better. It 
 is impossible for us to keep everything in 
 high condition, so that we must content 
 ourselves with the slow progress that na- 
 ture affords when unassisted. It really 
 seems as if sunshine and water are the 
 prime essentials, and that feeding is not 
 half so important as drinking. With this 
 view, it is hard to understand why it would 
 have upset the economy of nature to have 
 a shower every night in summer, to re- 
 fresh the fields and gardens of the world. 
 Possibly in time, when the new system of 
 producing rain has been brought down to 
 a fine point, there will be twice a week in 
 villages a pyrotechnic display, accompa- 
 nied with explosions, that will transform 
 241
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 the year into a perpetual Fourth of July, 
 to the delight of the infant mind. 
 
 Seriously speaking, should this new en- 
 ter P" se P rove successful, what a revolu- 
 tion man is to produce in nature ! To 
 trust such powers to his pygmy hand is 
 dangerous, for the consequences of his 
 personal gratification may be fatal to mil- 
 lions. Fertilize the Desert of Sahara, and 
 you cool off the south of Europe. Alter 
 the temperature of Spain and Italy and 
 southern France, and what is to become 
 of the British Isles ? It may be that thus 
 the future of the Dark Continent is to be 
 fulfilled. Migrations southward may be- 
 gin. Norway and Sweden, like Greenland, 
 may be left principally to the inferior 
 races, while new colonies spring up in 
 lands now tenanted but by the wandering 
 Bedouin or the swarthy Soudanese. 
 
 Given new conditions, results are incal- 
 culable, and if the rain, as well as the 
 lightning, is to be harnessed to the Char- 
 iot of Man, who can tell what disaster 
 shall await the Phaeton who dares to 
 drive such mighty and resistless steeds ? 
 Shall he too be hurled to ruin as a punish- 
 242
 
 A Water Garden 
 
 ment for his overtopping ambition ? or 
 will he prove master and lord even of the 
 elemental forces from whence he came ? 
 What is most sure is, that before they 
 yield themselves wholly to his bidding he 
 must suffer the consequences of his rash- 
 ness, and win his way to control only by 
 ghastly sacrifice of human life. 
 243
 
 XX 
 
 LANDSCAPE GARDENING
 
 Therefore am I still 
 A lover of the meadows and the woods 
 And mountains ; and of all that we behold 
 From this green earth ; of all the mighty world 
 Of eye and ear, both what they half create 
 And what perceive. 
 
 WORDSWORTH.
 
 XX 
 
 ROM unrelated detail upon a. A 
 place, we are gradually led 
 towards broader effects, and 
 a desire for more simple rela- 
 tions of parts to the whole, while a wish 
 to bring subordination to some central 
 idea that shall give purpose to the pic- 
 ture is gradually born in our minds. Thus 
 our work becomes an education in the 
 higher principles which must underlie all 
 beauty. 
 
 When we first purchased this old farm A quiet vii- 
 no dream of landscape gardening crossed 
 our minds. It was not to found a coun- 
 try-seat that we bought it, but simply to 
 get a place to live in, a quiet village home, 
 as indeed it is, where a lovely view would 
 gladden our eyes, where we should have 
 elbow-room, with enough land to cultivate 
 to provide us with an interest, and where 
 we could raise hay for our horses, and, 
 247
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 perhaps, a few vegetables for ourselves. 
 A tree or two to shade us, and some 
 Pines on the hillside to relieve its dreari- 
 ness, were in our programme, as well as 
 the Willows along the street ; but we felt 
 that we had twice as much land as we 
 needed, and should probably part with a 
 lot on each side of us before very long, 
 instead of wishing, as we now do, for a few 
 acres more. 
 
 As in everything else that one begins 
 in an amateurish way, we looked no fur- 
 ther along the road we are to travel than 
 the end of its first enticing curve, and lit- 
 tle we recked where it was to lead us. 
 To get rid of barrenness was our obvious 
 business, but there was no method in our 
 endeavor beyond the mere putting in of 
 all the trees and shrubs we could muster 
 from the resources of the place, or through 
 the kindness of our friends. 
 
 For the first two years it required our 
 best energies to make these live, and there 
 was not much thought beyond digging 
 around them, watering them when dry, and 
 pruning them into shape. But the third 
 summer, when the bare poles began to 
 248
 
 Landscape Gardening 
 
 have perceptible tops on them, and the 
 little shrubs to occupy a substantial space 
 of the earth's surface, we began to be con- 
 scious of defects of arrangement, of a lack 
 of meaning and purpose in the picture, 
 and to feel the necessity of a more artistic 
 disposition of our forces. The needs of Needs of the 
 the place, too, became apparent. The ptace ~ 
 trees that had been planted for shade 
 either showed that they would throw no 
 shadows at all within the next ten years, 
 at the proper hours, or else would throw 
 them where they were not particularly 
 needed. The shrubs in groups looked 
 crowded, the single ones gave a spotty 
 appearance to the lawn that was not to be 
 borne, the driveways were too wide and 
 their curves unsatisfactory, while the ex- 
 panses of turf were too brief for beauty. 
 
 Each effort at improvement seemed but 
 to make us the more conscious of our 
 lacks, and while our neighbors were com- 
 plimenting us upon the improved appear- 
 ance of the farm, which no longer looked 
 like an abandoned sand-hill, we ourselves 
 were taking counsel together, and coming 
 to the conclusion that the place was a 
 249
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 schoolmaster to bring us unto knowledge, 
 by the painful road of ignorance and 
 failure. 
 
 it is a hope- The conviction that you know nothing 
 vinced is always a hopeful, if a depressing sign. 
 
 When the painter feels that his finished 
 picture is a wretched daub, when the 
 writer knows that his last romance is but 
 a thing of shreds and patches, it is a 
 proof that he is still growing, that he has 
 a stronger note to strike, and that his end 
 is not yet. 
 
 One of our leading novelists says that 
 his stories are to him like those tapestries 
 wrought by the workman from behind, of 
 which the weaver sees only the wrong side, 
 the knots and ends of the worsted, the 
 seams of the foundation, so that when the 
 public views his finished work with de- 
 light, recognizing its sincerity and dra- 
 matic truth, the satisfaction of his readers 
 is to him a wonder, since from his own 
 point of view he knows not whether he 
 has wrought well or ill. 
 
 Successes - All great successes, I fancy, must be 
 ^"isesr surprises to the men who make them, for 
 the discontent of the artist with his paint- 
 250
 
 Landscape Gardening 
 
 ing, of the poet with his verse, of the 
 playwright with his play, is a penalty ex- 
 acted by the ideal for which men strive, 
 and which all the more surely eludes the 
 greatest, whose imagination is the most 
 far-reaching. When a man is satisfied 
 with what he has done he has reached his 
 limit ; from that point he goes down-hill, 
 imperceptibly it may be at first, but none 
 the less surely. 
 
 Our own discontent with our landscape- 
 gardening convinces me that we have a 
 future before us for a good while to come. 
 Our picture will bear a lot of working on 
 for many years yet, and in the mean time 
 we have room for a succession of despairs, 
 which will serve to keep us- properly 
 humble. 
 
 But that we have on the north of our A landscape 
 house a landscape to evolve that is a true 
 picture, no one can deny who looks out 
 upon the ever-changing meadow from the 
 bowery veranda from which we view it 
 with never-failing joy. Not a far-reaching 
 view, but such a one as Englishmen like 
 to paint, a distant hill, a few clustering 
 cottages, a level stretch of meadow with a 
 
 25 1
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 winding stream ; some Willows near at 
 hand. So far, so good ; but the fore- 
 ground is the puzzle. It is a muddle at 
 present, being a sacrifice to the utilities, 
 and is more or less disfigured with fruit- 
 trees and vegetables, and piles of sand 
 that have been dumped upon the marsh. 
 A good deal veiled it is, fortunately, by 
 the bending boughs of Pear and Apple 
 trees laden with fruit, which is their plea 
 for life, and when one is seated the balus- 
 trade of the veranda is an efficient screen, 
 so that one can freely enjoy the pleasing 
 prospect. 
 
 The French talk of the St. Martin des 
 femmes, which comes to them after the 
 beaute du diable has long gone by ; and our 
 meadow, too, has its fleeting glory of 
 youth in early spring, with Apple-bloom 
 flush, and delicious verdancy to match, 
 and then, after a commonplace summer 
 of good looks, it comes to its Martinmas, 
 and burns, and glows, and smiles, with a 
 richness and warmth that are the precursor 
 
 of the 
 
 Hectic of the dying year. 
 
 In this mature beauty, which is far more 
 252
 
 Landscape Gardening 
 
 permanent than the more exquisite spring 
 loveliness, there is a great charm. The 
 monotony of July greens has yielded to 
 the deeper tones of the woodland in Au- 
 gust. The declining sun casts longer 
 shadows in the afternoon. The grass 
 along the winding stream, now at its low- 
 est, stands up high from the surface of 
 the water, with darkly shaded edges the 
 more apparent that its prevailing tones are 
 russet with bright golden lights, where the 
 hay has not yet been cut. Here and there 
 the broad expanse shows a hay-cart and a 
 few moving figures, the one touch of life 
 wanting at other seasons to the landscape. 
 The rounded hay-cocks in the distance 
 are lightly shaded on the side opposite 
 the light. There are streaks of red-brown 
 where some of the grass is in blossom, and 
 of vivid green where masses of sedges 
 line the low banks of the tiny winding 
 river, in which their reflections tone the 
 blue through soft gradations to the deepest 
 shadow. A solitary heron floats above 
 the marsh, beating the air with slow 
 strokes of his broad wings. In the even- 
 ing sometimes the clanging of the wild 
 2 S3
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 A flight of geese is heard, the first deep tone in the 
 knell of dying summer. Now and then 
 a white flight of gulls comes up from the 
 harbor searching for fish, pouncing down 
 behind the grass after some luckless perch 
 in the water. The shadows of the dis- 
 tant Oaks are darkest blue, and some 
 far-off Elms fleck the front of an orange- 
 colored cottage and subdue it to harmony. 
 The gray roofs and red chimneys of the 
 distant houses and barns, half-buried in 
 foliage, seem an essential of the picture, 
 giving it that touch of humanness without 
 which a landscape lacks its final charm. 
 The veranda rail, with its drapery of Wood- 
 bine, gives a strong accent that brings out 
 the values of the middle distance, while 
 the tops of two old Apple-trees, laden with 
 fruit, make a pleasing curve in contrast to 
 the level lines of the party-colored marsh, 
 elsewhere broken by the ashy-green foli- 
 age of some graceful Willows across the 
 invisible road. 
 
 So much, at least, our landscape gar- 
 dening has accomplished ; the ugly line 
 which killed our predecessor has been 
 obliterated by our border-plantation, and, 
 254
 
 Landscape Gardening 
 
 to all intents and purposes, the great The mea- 
 stretch of grassy meadow, with its winding park" 
 Stream and its bounding masses of Oak 
 and Maple woods, is our own park, for 
 none of its owners get the good of it as 
 we do. For us it glows with sunshine, or 
 frowns with a passing cloud ; ours all this 
 wealth of jasper and chrysoprase and tur- 
 quoise ; as much ours as the silver sheen 
 of the Willows which wave so softly gray 
 against it, and rest the eye from the daz- 
 zling tints in which the old marsh arrays 
 herself for the mowers. But the problem 
 that vexes our spirits is that unshaped 
 foreground, and how it may be made to 
 blend more completely with the meadow 
 into one harmonious whole. If the great 
 Apple-tree could but change places with a 
 certain Elm, that is of no use in the land- 
 scape where it stands, the matter would 
 settle itself. Two more Apple-trees to cut 
 down, and you have a composition. 
 
 But a Seek-no-further, which bears sev- Good app let 
 eral barrels of early apples that are very 
 good eating, is not easily to be sacrificed, 
 even to the demands of a landscape, to 
 which it is also advantageous from its 
 2 55
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 height and mass, that could not be re- 
 produced by any tree planted in our day, 
 unless, indeed, we had the purse of Miss 
 Catherine Wolfe to spend thousands in 
 moving giants. If it could be had for the 
 asking, I think I should choose a low, 
 wide-spreading Oak rather than a stately 
 Elm, or possibly the view might be im- 
 proved if we had no tree at all, but that 
 effect we have from an upper window, 
 which may have its balcony some day. 
 A destrue- A whirlwind swept up the valley on the 
 twelfth of August, and very nearly settled 
 the question for us by making a clean 
 sweep, but, luckily, contented itself with 
 two or three great boughs full of apples, 
 which are left hanging now by a slip of 
 bark, in hopes that they may get sap 
 enough through this narrow channel to 
 ripen, but it looks doubtful. 
 
 The same storm made havoc in the 
 garden with such tall Hollyhocks and 
 Poppies as had carelessly been left untied, 
 and then whisked a branch from off our 
 great Elm, and split in two a large Swamp 
 Maple on the other side of the street. A 
 five-minute tornado it was, with pouring 
 256
 
 Landscape Gardening 
 
 flood that swept the main street of the 
 village, and littered it with fallen trunks 
 and limbs twisted off in its whirling flight 
 As brief, but more violent a gale I have 
 seen in Maine, cutting a forest into wind- 
 rows, as a mower would cut grass with his 
 scythe. 
 
 To make a landscape garden one must * landscape 
 
 garden re- 
 
 live with it and study it, putting in a touch quires study. 
 here and there, as the painter treats his 
 canvas, now effacing a spot, again adding 
 an accent, blending, harmonizing, even 
 destroying, if need be, and beginning 
 once more. Advice you may listen to, 
 but be not over-hasty to accept sugges- 
 tion. Weigh each idea well before you 
 admit it, look at it from all sides, for it 
 will always have more than one. It is you 
 who will have to live with the picture, and 
 it is your mind that should lend the indi- 
 viduality that will make the scene your 
 own. It is, after all, the personal touch 
 that is worth while. 
 
 A fair woman, who is a summer neigh- 
 bor of ours, took me the other day through 
 interesting grounds, which her own taste 
 and care had brought into a wild and yet 
 257
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 controlled beauty. Boulders draped with 
 vines, and shrubberies of native growth, 
 lined the long avenue that wound up a 
 wooded and rocky hillside to a home 
 which overlooks Massachusetts Bay. But 
 A view of the finest feature of the commanding pros- 
 Harbor" 1 pect was a. glimpse of the rounded hills 
 'Corset. and silver-shining water of Hingham Har- 
 bor, toward which the eye was led over 
 miles of treetops. Just in front was a 
 lawn of perfect turf, golden-green in the 
 low sunlight, and a little way off, against 
 the blue dome of sky. stood up some heavy 
 Cedars, their black masses of foliage giv- 
 ing just the required force of accent to 
 the foreground, throwing far away into 
 the remotest distance the lovely outline 
 of the Blue Hills of Milton. 
 
 An abiding Such a picture one cannot forget. In- 
 memory. tclligencc and taste have added to it the 
 last refining touch. Remoteness is here, 
 and sylvan wildness, contrasted with the 
 gentle charm of well-swept turf, and skill- 
 fully subordinated groups of flowering 
 shrubs and plants, that complete, but form 
 no jarring note in the beautiful scene. To 
 me it seemed perfection, but with the eye 
 258
 
 Landscape Gardening 
 
 of the true artist who loves his work, my 
 hostess noted a ledge here, an obtrusive 
 Oak-top there, which, to her fastidious 
 taste, seemed to intrude. For the true 
 lover of nature works forever at his pic- 
 ture, ever sensitive to a new charm, watch- 
 ful for a fresh effect, rejoicing in each 
 change, painting with a palette of the Nature's 
 great Mother's blending, on a canvas of i>atntmg - 
 her own contriving, with an impression- 
 ism that cannot falsify, and a detail that 
 is never intrusive. In this great school 
 one learns breadth without vagueness, in- 
 tensity without violence, and softness that 
 cannot be effeminate. The value of at- 
 mosphere, the glory of the sky, can never 
 be out of key with the picture, and the 
 " seeing eye," by careful study and patient 
 waiting, can here evolve ideal beauty from 
 material form. 
 
 259
 
 XXI 
 
 THE WANING YEAR AND ITS 
 SUGGESTIONS
 
 Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness ! 
 Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun. 
 
 KEATS. 
 
 Nature never did betray 
 The heart that loved her ; 't is her privilege 
 Through all the years of this our life, to lead 
 From joy to joy. 
 
 WORDSWORTH.
 
 XXI 
 
 OUR season's labor draws to its 
 close, and with it comes a pe- 
 riod of rest and reflection, as 
 we turn our thoughts back 
 through this pleasant summer of work and 
 hope. 
 
 The charm of a long autumn is very Autumn 
 great, but seldom permitted by our capri- 
 cious climate, which is apt to spoil the 
 garden in September, and then make the 
 misfortune the more apparent by a suc- 
 cession of mild October days, when flow- 
 ers and green leaves would suit the soft 
 warm weather. 
 
 This year, which has made eccentric 
 shifts of all the months in turn, giving 
 us a dry April and a cold July, bestowed 
 upon us a most enchanting autumn, mild 
 and free from storms, so that vegetation 
 remained perfect till late October, and the 
 harvest-time was most propitious. 
 263
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 A delayed No early frost blighted the cornfield, or 
 marred the golden pumpkin's fairness. 
 No rain made the apple and pear gather- 
 ing a disappointment and a sorrow. Late 
 flowers lined the garden - walks in un- 
 chilled splendor until mid-October, while 
 the soft September haze and the mellow 
 glow of the suceeding month showed Ma- 
 ples in full green leaf, and Oaks with 
 only a touch of ripened crimson. 
 
 Autumn When the autumn comes thus slowly to 
 
 maturity, a tinge of russet and gold creeps 
 softly into the landscape. Here and there 
 is the accent of a red leaf or branch, like 
 the note of a trumpet in an orchestra. Soft 
 browns steal into the meadows, and form 
 a shade on northern slopes. Dead are 
 the Goldenrods and Asters, faded the 
 roadside flowers. The Rose-hips make 
 ruddy gleams in the bushes, and a few be- 
 lated Barberries cling to their thorny stems 
 in wizened splendor, while other berries, 
 purple and black, cluster by the fences, 
 and the nut-trees hang out their smooth 
 or prickly burrs, promising a harvest of 
 brown fruit. 
 
 This is the green old age of the year, 
 264
 
 The Waning Year and its Suggestions 
 cheery and fruitful, bountiful and rich. The old age 
 
 J . of the year. 
 
 Gone are the hurry of spring and the bur- 
 den of summer, the slow harvest has been 
 gathered, and repose has come to the 
 teeming earth. Now must the gardener 
 look forward and plan for the coming sea- 
 son, and set his bulbs for spring blooming, 
 and clear away the rubbish of dead stftms 
 from the flower-beds, and transplant pe- 
 rennials that they may blossom freely the 
 following summer. 
 
 It is well in planting a garden to ar- 
 range for this season, which is so pleasing, 
 by having a profusion of hardy plants that 
 are not easily disheartened by a chill, and 
 make a brave show as the year wanes. 
 This is a care often neglected by public 
 gardeners, who stock their parterres with 
 ephemeral blooms that the first cold 
 breath destroys, leaving but a dreary 
 group of dry sticks behind. 
 
 Well mingled with these more delicate Latebios- 
 plants should be those hardy perennials SOK 
 that lift their gallant little heads and smile 
 in the very teeth of winter. The hardy 
 Chrysanthemum, the Marigold, and Calen- 
 dula are a delight in the late autumn, with 
 265
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 their cheery tints. The Salvia, less hardy, 
 is the glory of a September garden, and 
 many another flower, with a little shelter 
 at night, will make a walk gay and cheer- 
 ful that would otherwise be gloomy with 
 decay and desolation. The Japanese An- 
 emone is a treasure at this season, and 
 those bushes bearing ornamental fruit, 
 which hangs on even amid the snows of 
 winter, should never be omitted from a 
 border. 
 
 Comfort Like a happy temper in adversity is a 
 
 f fl e ?. gleam of color in the garden in the late 
 autumn. One draws a lesson of good 
 cheer from a Calendula, so undaunted and 
 gay even when the snows are falling on its 
 golden head. A cluster of red berries on 
 a dry stem gives a distinct joy in early 
 winter, and life is made brighter by the 
 aspect of hardy blossoms and hardier fruit 
 when all the trees around are stripped of 
 foliage. 
 
 In summer the charm of a garden is in 
 its coolness and shade, in the dark shelter 
 of thick trees and the quiet of a shaded 
 arbor. In the autumn we seek the sun- 
 shine and desire color and warmth, wish- 
 266
 
 The Waning Year and its Suggestions 
 
 ing to forget the coming cold and the 
 swift fading of leaf and flower. 
 
 It is like the natural clinging of man to Y**- 
 
 dreads death 
 
 life which increases as years steal upon less than the 
 him. Youth does not dread death as age age ' 
 shrinks from it. The habit of living be- 
 comes stronger as we descend the hill, 
 and the suggestion of interruption seems 
 impertinent. The late scentless flowers 
 are more precious than the summer Roses, 
 for their time will soon be gone. Nature 
 cheats us with her autumn splendor, which 
 beguiles the mind into forgetting that it is 
 the precursor of decay. While we admire 
 the glory of a Maple grove, we do not real- 
 ize that the storms of winter are gathering 
 behind the forest. When the mountains 
 are purple in the low sunlight, we forget 
 the snows that shall soon whiten their 
 summits, and there is wisdom in this 
 natural instinct that forbids foreboding 
 when joy is at hand, which can enjoy the 
 present without seeking to lift the curtain 
 of the future. 
 
 Let us rejoice, then, in the autumn flow- Rejoice in 
 ers ; in the soft atmosphere that clothes 
 the world with beauty; in the great 
 267
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 moon's yellow light; in the round, soft 
 clouds, and the wild scurry of the dun 
 rack that scuds across the heavens when 
 the breeze rises. Full soon will that 
 searching wind scatter the jewel -like 
 leaves, and tear the last petal from the 
 shrinking flowers, while the grass grows 
 brown and sear, and the soft earth stiffens, 
 like a body from which life has departed. 
 Too soon will the valiant head of the last 
 Daisy be buried in a mantle of snow, and 
 the leaden sky bend low above a frozen 
 earth. Let us be glad then while we may, 
 for the days shorten, and with them our 
 summer joys, and the lives of the autumn 
 flowers. 
 
 A lesson But as the summer wanes, and we turn 
 
 once more from nature to our own minds 
 for refreshment and solace, we begin to 
 consider what the year's efforts have 
 brought to us, and to reflect what is the 
 serious lesson taught by all our labor, and 
 to sum up our inward experiences, before 
 we take that account of our material stock 
 with which this simple record is to close. 
 No experiment is really valuable which 
 does not conduce to the mind's growth, 
 268
 
 The Waning Year and its Suggestions 
 
 and therefore amid these frolicsome rec- 
 ords of disaster and enjoyment, I would 
 wish to insert this one didactic chapter, 
 which may easily be skipped by those who 
 seek amusement only, in reading this little 
 book, in which I can emphasize in a few 
 words the effect of out-of-door interests 
 upon the mind and moral nature of those 
 who enjoy them. And I do this the more 
 willingly because I believe that a taste for 
 gardening is one of the elemental impulses 
 of humanity. There are individuals with- 
 out it, as there are people without sight or 
 hearing or a sense of smell ; but, on the 
 whole, to dig comes naturally to man, and 
 at some time or other in the course of his 
 existence the desire to own a portion of 
 the earth's surface is apt to seize upon 
 him, and demand satisfaction. 
 
 This impulse is of maturity rather than A **&<>/ 
 
 r , r -, . . , maturity. 
 
 of youth, for gardening in its larger sense 
 is a thoughtful pursuit, appealing to the 
 broader qualities of the understanding. 
 It is not merely the desire for healthful 
 exercise which stirs a man, but also the 
 wish to learn the secrets of our common 
 mother, to force her hand, as it were, and 
 269
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 compel her to reward his toil. The fable 
 of the giant Antaeus, who renewed his 
 strength when he came in contact with the 
 earth, has a subtle meaning, for it is by 
 this contact that many weary souls have 
 found rest and arisen refreshed. 
 
 To him who is tired of mankind the 
 solitude and peace of a garden have a 
 rare charm. Many a great statesman 
 has turned from the cares of state to till 
 his fields, or cultivate his flower-beds and 
 trees, his alert brain finding full range 
 for its activity in some scheme of land- 
 scape, or some great project for fertiliz- 
 ing a barren waste and rendering it pro- 
 ductive. 
 
 Food for Gardening gratifies the thoughtful mind, 
 
 because it does not look for immediate re- 
 sults. It inculcates patience in all its 
 teachings, patience not only with pro- 
 cesses, but with results, for disappoint- 
 ments have often to be met ; the best of 
 schemes fail of accomplishment, new ene- 
 mies arise on every hand, visible and hid- 
 den. To combat them requires perse- 
 verance, fertility in resource, promptness 
 in action. 
 
 270
 
 The Waning Year and its Suggestions 
 
 The gardener's life can never be purely 
 contemplative. However fair his domain, 
 he must perforce keep his eyes open in it, 
 and his mind active. Vigilance must be 
 his attribute, or he will have cause for re- 
 gret. By watching he learns what to do, 
 and what to leave undone, the habits 
 of the plants he tends, their needs, their 
 uses, the different phases of their beauty. 
 Unconsciously he becomes educated, and 
 his mind lays up new stores of facts and 
 deductions for future use. 
 
 The planter also grows in unselfish zeal Unselfish 
 as his plans increase in scope. He pre- character. " 
 pares for the future race, not alone for his 
 own joy. The trees he disposes for an- 
 other generation to sit under ; he plants 
 timber for the heir to cut ; he adds to his 
 broad acres that he may leave them to his 
 children. For himself the toil, for others 
 the fruit of his labors ; and thus, setting 
 aside his own recompense, he comes into 
 a larger manhood, into that fullness of life 
 which only belongs to him who has for- 
 gotten self, and lives for an end he cannot 
 hope to see. 
 
 From all this training should result en- 
 27!
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 durance of unavoidable evils, fortitude in 
 disappointment, serenity of mind. Thus 
 the garden shows itself to be a school of 
 the higher virtues, of patience, of tranquil- 
 lity, of vigilance, of fortitude, of unselfish- 
 ness and high serenity. 
 
 More lessons than these it teaches, 
 therefore small wonder that the g-roping 
 soul of man, ever seeking higher things, 
 turns to this simplest pursuit as a child to 
 its mother, finding in her arms comfort 
 for his unrest. Unconsciously he seeks 
 this school, which is so great a help to his 
 spirit, and thinks often it is the pure air 
 and exercise alone that have given tone to 
 his nerves, and fresh vigor to his under- 
 standing. 
 
 its best effect But, after all, the best thing the garden 
 does for man is to imbue him with a love 
 of home, to anchor him to that one spot of 
 the earth's surface which he calls his own, 
 and to which he can impart some portion 
 of his own individuality. The acres he 
 has tilled, the garden-plot he has watered, 
 will always be dear to him and to his chil- 
 dren, and it is this desire for a home and 
 an inheritance for those who shall come 
 272
 
 The Waning Year and its Suggestions 
 
 after him, that drives him to the purchase 
 of land and the beginning of agriculture. 
 
 A man who owns a freehold in his 
 country becomes of account at once ; it 
 lifts him from the position of a transient 
 into the dignity of a resident ; he gives 
 hostages to fortune ; he becomes an es- 
 tablished citizen, in place of a possible 
 tramp, and is of more value in the com- 
 munity forthwith. The effect upon him- 
 self is elevating and composing. It stills 
 his restlessness, allays ennui, turns the 
 current of his mind into new channels, 
 provides him with an amusement for his 
 leisure hours, while giving occasion for 
 healthful exertion, as well as stimulating 
 wholesome thought. It is opposed to 
 morbidness, it forbids subjectivity, it 
 rouses the imagination, and gratifies the 
 love of beauty. 
 
 There is that fine largeness of quality 
 in it as an amusement that appeals to the 
 simplest minds, as well as to the most 
 comprehensive. It is this which proves 
 that it is elemental and human to love a 
 garden, to enjoy the soil, to find comfort 
 in watching the development of plants 
 2 73
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 and trees, and joy in their blossom and 
 fruitage. 
 
 Needs of the In America we need just this to give us 
 stay and balance. In the older world, 
 where habits are more established, the 
 taste is strong. Here it is overgrown by 
 many things. In so great a land as ours 
 one portion of the soil seems not enough 
 for the citizen. He wants a ranch in 
 Colorado, an Orange-grove in Florida, a 
 seaside home on the coast of Maine, in 
 addition to his city dwelling. But as the 
 crowd increases, and the nation ages, more 
 and more will men concentrate their ener- 
 gies upon one spot, and the love of home 
 and locality will grow more intense, as it 
 is apt to do in the human being when 
 years bring greater quiet to his spirit, and 
 make rest his choicest blessing. 
 
 Outcome o When we are at last sure that our chil- 
 dren will be content to reap what we have 
 sown, to repose under the trees that we 
 have planted, solidity and peace will come 
 to us, and life will grow more simple and 
 more pleasurable to our people. Then 
 will the garden be the true pleasure- 
 ground, and its wise stillness will pervade 
 274
 
 The Waning Year and its Suggestions 
 
 the character of the men who find its cul- 
 ture a real education, and there learn the 
 needed lessons of perseverance, and pa- 
 tient waiting for the good the future 
 brings, leading lives without hurry, full 
 of calm interest in their surroundings, and 
 with no wish for change. 
 275
 
 XXII 
 UTILITY VERSUS BEAUTY
 
 Happy art thou, whom God does bless 
 With the full choice of thine own happiness ; 
 And happier yet, because thou 'rt blest 
 With prudence how to choose the best : 
 In books and gardens thou hast placed aright 
 (Things which thou well dost understand, 
 And both dost make with thy laborious hand) 
 Thy noble, innocent delight. 
 
 ABRAHAM COWLEY. 
 
 The trumpet of a prophecy ! O wind, 
 If winter comes, can spring be far behind ? 
 SHELLEY.
 
 XXII 
 
 spite of all the moral effects A trial to 
 
 r i j i I.M the temper. 
 
 of the garden upon the philoso- 
 
 pher within us, I am constrained 
 to confess that it has its trials 
 for the average temper, and that, in that 
 development of patience for which it 
 works, there is a good deal of stumbling 
 by the way, during the battle between the 
 useful and the ornamental ; for on any 
 moderate-sized place, with only a man or 
 two to do the necessary work, there is a 
 constant conflict between what is of pres- 
 ent importance, and what serves for future 
 adornment. 
 
 This is one reason why we like to have 
 as many things done in the autumn as 
 can safely be accomplished at that time, 
 because of all seasons of the year the 
 spring is the one when everything comes 
 at once, and your factotum is more than 
 279
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 ever distracted by the various calls upon 
 his time and attention. 
 
 The spring I used to wonder why farmers were 
 always behindhand with their work, and, 
 while apparently idle part of their time, 
 were driven to death for about two thirds 
 of the year ; but I have discovered that 
 the weather is responsible for a good deal, 
 first by being cold and perhaps wet in 
 the spring, so that the ground cannot be 
 tilled until late, and then suddenly sending 
 everything ahead by a few unseasonable 
 days of heat and sunshine. Then there 
 is a scurry for the hitherto impracticable 
 digging of the vegetable-garden, a head- 
 long rush to get the seeds in the grass, 
 which always interferes at unseasonable 
 moments, demands the lawn-mower, and 
 will not wait a minute. The shrubs that 
 you have been waiting to move until the 
 weather should be mild enough to permit 
 your superintending the operation (one 
 can cope with a piercing east wind for 
 this purpose, but not with a northwest 
 snowstorm) shake off their icicles, and 
 all at once begin to leave out ; in a day 
 or two it will be too late. If there is 
 280
 
 Utility versus Beauty 
 
 a tree that you have intended to plant 
 at this season the complications are in- 
 creased, for setting a tree properly is a 
 work of time, and delay here is danger- 
 ous. 
 
 The perennials need overhauling and 
 replanting in the flower-garden ; the weeds 
 are rushing ahead and choking every- 
 thing ; you want your man to attend to 
 them when he has to be putting in peas 
 and potatoes for your future sustenance. 
 
 The whole spring is one breathless Haying 
 moment, through which you are rushed l' '" e s ^' 
 helter-skelter, leaving half your needs un- 
 attended to ; and while you are still en- 
 deavoring to catch up with the work, all 
 of a sudden our headlong summer bounces 
 into haying time, and the hapless beautifier 
 is worse off than ever. 
 
 Of what account are trees and shrubs 
 and flowers, or even the ever-clamoring 
 lawn itself, when the fields are to be 
 shorn, and possible thunderstorms lurk 
 low along the horizon ? This is the weeds' 
 moment, and they avail themselves of 
 it promptly. Up comes the Chickweed 
 among the peas and corn ; the flower- 
 281
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 garden fairly bristles with Plantains and 
 Mallows, and the paths are slippery with 
 Purslane. On the lawn the Dandelions 
 begin to intrude, and go to seed when 
 they are only an inch high, lying down 
 deceitfully under the lawn-mower, and 
 poking up their white plumes the minute 
 it has passed in the most imperturbable 
 manner. 
 
 The harvest ^ * s f no use to summon any one. 
 " Tnat S rass must be cut to-day," or " the 
 hay must be turned, or forked over, or 
 got in, or whatever " there is no appeal ; 
 harvest-claims take precedence, and the 
 weeds nod their heads at each other, and 
 say " Come along ! " and life is to them a 
 beautiful holiday. 
 
 By the time the last load of hay has 
 been safely stowed away, these same weeds 
 have to be coped with, for they have be- 
 come a forest, and that still further post- 
 pones the time when the esthetic side of 
 your place can really have any considera- 
 tion given to it. At last, when you do get 
 round to it, it is too late to do anything, 
 and one can only sit down and make plans 
 for another season, which will again be 
 282
 
 Utility "versus Beauty 
 
 buried out of sight, in the rush which is 
 sure of a periodical return. 
 
 For this reason August is a month Augusta 
 which I delight in, for then there is a ****"* 
 moment's breathing-space before the fruit 
 harvest and the terrible " second crop " 
 are again upon the carpet. It is a good 
 time for grading and sodding before the 
 autumn rains. With care, and a ball of 
 earth, some of the hardy shrubs can be 
 moved ; if it has been a dry summer, now 
 is the chance to put in some evergreens 
 and to remodel your beds of dwarfs. But 
 no sooner do we get fairly to work, and 
 the general effect begins to improve and 
 ideas to take shape, than the marsh, 
 which usually claims the whole late fall, 
 and the months of March and April, puts 
 in an appeal for drainage, and, presto ! 
 the men who were engaged in ornamental 
 work are whisked away, and you can only 
 see the tops of their heads above the edge 
 of a pile of dirt, as they burrow their way 
 along an unsightly ditch. 
 
 Then comes September with its pears p ea rsatirf 
 and apples. Your own fruit is a fine thing som> 
 to have in theory, beautiful to look for- 
 283
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 ward to, something to be proud of, but it 
 is a tremendous burden when it comes. 
 The gathering is an important labor, but 
 taking care of it when it is gathered is in- 
 finitely worse. The pears, especially, must 
 be watched daily, turned and selected, 
 and the refuse rejected, till their owner 
 would be happier if he never saw a Bart- 
 lett or a Jargonelle again. The early 
 apples, welcome and useful as they are, 
 demand the closest attention, and it is not 
 until the last Russet is gathered, and bar- 
 reled, and stowed away in the cellar for 
 winter use, that the amateur farmer can 
 have an easy mind. 
 Profit in a Perhaps it would be wiser to choose be- 
 
 garden after 
 
 ail. tween ornamental and useful management 
 
 of a place to begin with, and content your- 
 self with either a farm or a garden, as the 
 case might be ; but in this event, though 
 one would probably have better results to 
 show, he would miss much of the fun of 
 the more helter-skelter methods of land- 
 scape-practice, as well as the profits of 
 orderly market-gardening, which can never 
 be very successful in the hands of ama- 
 teurs. There is, however, a sense of profit 
 284
 
 Utility versus Beauty 
 
 in your own garden as an accessory, what- 
 ever statistics show, which is not to be fore- 
 gone ; and, as to the pleasure of getting 
 trees and shrubs in their proper places, 
 who that has read these chapters can 
 doubt that they are a source of amuse- 
 ment and instruction alike, even to the 
 most unpractical of their protectors ? 
 
 The problems of the old place will con- The puzzle 
 tinue to develop and add puzzle to puzzle 
 in our uninstructed minds ; we may pay 
 dear for our whistle, but we shall have 
 the whistle anyhow. After a few more 
 years of experiment and failure, or suc- 
 cess, as the wheel turns, we shall proba- 
 bly come to the conclusion to let the grass 
 and shrubs grow as they will under the 
 trees, and let the rest go, which will, I am 
 disposed to think, be wholly to the advan- 
 tage of the looker-on. But while some 
 vestige of vigor is left to us, we shall think 
 the puzzle part more interesting than the 
 solution, and so struggle happily on, set- 
 ting for ourselves ingenious examples, to 
 be painfully worked out perhaps to a 
 wrong result. Interest in the place will 
 be less when we can no longer tinker at it 
 285
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 to advantage, but to that excitement will 
 possibly succeed the calm enjoyment of 
 those who sit under the tree they have 
 planted, and partake of the fruits of their 
 own vine. 
 
 As we look up to-day to the trees, upon 
 whose tops we could look down three 
 years ago, we begin to realize the profit of 
 our labors, and to feel that we may even 
 live to take pride in them. The birds which 
 sing in their branches, and build their nests 
 among the twigs, thank us sweetly for the 
 shelter thus provided, though their harmo- 
 nious chatter adds to the precariousness 
 of a morning nap. The shrubs expand 
 with vigor, the flowers we have planted 
 flaunt gayly, the vines are climbing to the 
 roof-tree. The spot not long ago so deso- 
 late and unpromising is now sheltered and 
 verdant. The dull red walls of the house 
 have taken on a mantle of green, as it 
 begins to nestle into the shadow of the 
 upreaching branches, that will erelong 
 overtop its chimneys. The raw freshness 
 has largely disappeared, the new place is 
 melting into the old, and in a few years 
 more people will have forgotten, as they 
 286
 
 Utility versus Beauty 
 
 so soon do, the former conditions, and 
 will cease to realize the importance of the 
 changes made. 
 
 The beauty of stately expanses, of deep 
 solitudes, of extensive lawns, and broad 
 park-like spaces, we can never attain, but 
 travelers on the village highway will look 
 kindly through the overarching trees and 
 say, " A pleasant home is there, and a fair 
 outlook on a quiet scene." 
 
 Already the Willows of the boundary Summer 
 stretch up to hide us from the rear. The 
 Pines are showing dark once more, against 
 the hill sunbrowned by the September 
 sun. Yellow leaves are shining on the 
 Elms and Birches, and the shrill wind 
 streaks the green grass with bright-hued 
 foliage, torn from the Maple boughs. The 
 gay-colored blossoms of autumn flowers 
 gleam from the shrubberies, and the low- 
 declining sun casts long shadows across 
 the turf. Soon will a nipping frost bestrew 
 the lawn with wrecks of summer glory; 
 the birds are gathering for their southern 
 flight ; the year is past its prime. A few 
 short weeks of hectic color, and then 
 the end, the sleep, the long dull silence of 
 287
 
 The Rescue of an Old Place 
 
 winter, the sheets of snow, the chains of 
 ice, that bind the earth until her re-awak- 
 ening. 
 
 September How swift the silent succession of the 
 w ' months ! September seems to tread upon 
 the train of June, it is so quickly here, so 
 quickly gone. The Goldenrod is the first 
 plume of the year's hearse, yet when its 
 earliest yellow feathers wave we burn un- 
 der the hot breath of summer, but ere they 
 lose all their gold, the hand of death is 
 on the grass, and the brown leaves have 
 fallen. 
 
 Autumn A cold rain patters on the gravel walk, 
 
 and the branches of the trees are dripping 
 as they hang unstirred. The sky is gloomy 
 and leaden, one vast gray cloud sullenly 
 enwraps the heavens. There is no hope, 
 no outlook ; all is sad and drear, rain 
 over head, a wet earth under foot. Sum- 
 mer has gone ; the chill of autumn is here. 
 But hark ! what is that murmur ? It is the 
 northwest wind blowing his distant horn, 
 and in a twinkling the leaden skies are 
 broken with windows of light. The gray 
 scud whisks up toward the zenith, the 
 wet trees shake off their burden, and wave 
 288
 
 Utility versus Beauty 
 
 joyfully in the keen breeze. October October 
 comes ! What though his tramp is over C0i 
 the dead leaves ! He comes like a warrior 
 from battle, fresh and strong, inspiriting 
 and brave. " Be not cast down ! " he 
 cries, " by the death of fair summer. Bold 
 winter succeeds to the throne. He is a 
 king worth having, and his reign shall re- 
 store your vigor, men of the north ! He 
 helps to make you what you are ! Behind 
 him, hidden by his furry mantle, lurks the 
 spring, and then once more the dead sum- 
 mer shall be reborn, and the world shall 
 be again all blossom and music ! " 
 
 So with this bracing note, October vaiei 
 passes on, while, cheered by hope and 
 softened by memory, we leave the old 
 place to sleep awhile, and turn to our win- 
 ter fire, and the companionship of men 
 and books, in lieu of birds, and trees, and 
 flowers, which have gladdened us for half 
 a year. 
 
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