which a cultivated taste can suggest. It is remarkable, however, for the perfection of its fruit forcing arrangements, which make a range of glasshouses four hundred yards long, with a delightful promenade through orange and peach trees and under clusters of unrivaled grapes. There are also pits for forcing pines and melons and all the varieties of vegetables which a luxurious table may require.

England is full of these beautiful places, which will rarely be copied here, because, in the absence of laws of primogeniture, wealth is quickly distributed and valuable estates rarely remain in one family more than two generations.

I name these because they are among the possibilities of horticulture, possibilities even in this country, where Mr. Hunnewell has made at Wellesley, near Boston, a landscape of tree and turf, lake, and Italian garden which the Duke of Sutherland might admire, and which none in this country yet equal.

In these same wanderings I stumbled upon another marvel of taste and ingenuity. While visiting the quaint old town of Chester, and walking over its roofed pavements I learned that Lady Hamilton was the owner of a most effective and curious piece of rock landscape in the vicinity, and kept it somewhat excluded from the public gaze.

With the owner of my best half, I therefore endeavoured to get a glimpse of it. We drove to the entrance gate and found it barred and bolted.

No true American likes to be thus excluded. My companion could not, with dignity, scale the gate, so we searched for some side entrance, and discovered one near a gardener's cottage, by a walk lined with high and close hedges, through an opening of which we turned and found ourselves face to face with a courteous and stately lady armed with gauntlets and pruning shears.

Lifting my hat, and summoning all the courage which a Yankee is supposed to possess, I explained that we were Americans, had heard of the extraordinary beauty of her grounds, and ventured to intrude upon her to ask of her courtesy the privilege of seeing them. She met our explanation with the utmost politeness, and, with the perfect manner of a high bred English lady, invited us to enter. From the seclusion of the hedge we opened suddenly upon the lawn. The illusion was perfect. There were scarcely two acres of ground and yet there appeared a broad valley with alpine mountains.

The foreground was a flat surface of well kept turf, dotted with occasional low clumps of plants, and extended out to a crescent of rock-work, which stretched its horns around half the lawn. These rocks were piled one upon the other, in all sorts of irregular forms, to the height of twenty feet, sometimes precipitous with pockets of earth, and sometimes sloping upwards with a gentle ascent. Upon these pockets and spaces of soil were planted Irish yews, junipers, and other pyramidal trees, so arranged that it was difficult to realize that the foreground did not cover miles of plain, that the rocks were not truly Alpine heights, crowned by Alpine forests.

The small space of ground occupied by this design would make it easily copied in this country. I mention these three places because they are types of what may be found all over England. Why cannot they be found here? The answer lies in the facts I have already stated, and also in the two facts, that good gardeners are rare, and that owners do not acquire the requisite knowledge. Good gardeners are rare, because employers, who would not hesitate to pay $3,000 to a book-keeper, whose art can be acquired in a year, hesitate to pay $1,000 to a man whose art is the result of ten or twenty years' experience. The good gardener is thus tempted to go into business

for himself, and his place is taken by a man who professes much, but knows little, who, according to his own story, has been gardener to lords and earls, but cannot distinguish an elm from a horse-chestnut. Making blunder after blunder, he exhausts the patience and the purse of his employer, who knows nothing of plants or soil, and who finally decides that a country place is a nuisance.

All this results from the cause that the employer does not inform himself. If he recognized the fact that a well-cultivated garden, and a wellplanted and shaven lawn are to the home, what the gold is to the frame, or the color to the picture, he would devote half an hour every evening to reading up, as he would read himself up on anything pertaining to his business. He would visit various kitchen gardens, and copy the best features of each. He would visit parks and nurseries, make himself familiar with the varieties of trees and shrubs, and be able to appreciate all the forms and foliage tints which can make a lawn like one of the landscapes of Claude Lorraine. He could, then, with the assistance of ordinary laborers, have his tables loaded with the finest vegetables and the most luscious fruits, while his children could look upon trees whose varied forms and colors would charm their eyes as a veritable Murillo would charm an artist.

Some will now ask me, what are those trees and shrubs which produce these marvelous effects? The effects are not marvelous, but are simply the results of a tasteful combination of the materials which nature bountifully holds out for the hands of every man.

These materials I can only rapidly sketch in the limited time of this evening.

Have you a road or street passing by your grounds?

these:

Plant it with

The Tulip tree, rapid in growth, stately in form, and with a shadow of gold in its light tinted foliage.

The American Chestnut, with its rapid growth, its shining foliage, and its feathery flower is a very desirable tree for streets. Its only objection is, that when it bears, small boys will swarm like bees upon its branches. The graceful and gothic like arches of the American Elm are wellknown.

Few trees are more valuable for streets than the Linden; the American, for its large leaf and rapid growth; the Silver, for its very light foliage, and the common European, for the fine avenue effects, which are best ilustrated on the Champs Elysée, at Paris.

The European Beech is one of the finest of street trees. Time, however, is requisite to show its beauty. The Pin Oak is more rapid, and its beauty we have tested in an avenue planted on our grounds twenty-five years ago. The Maples are deservedly favorites-the Norway, for its round head and dense foliage; the Sugar, for its more pyramidal and upright habit; the Ash-leaved, for its light foliage and its great rapidity of growth, and the Scarlet, for its brightness in spring and its brilliant tints in autumn. The Liquidamber, for its pyramidal form and purple autumnal tints, and the Oriental Plane, for its great rapidity of growth, are both valuable street trees. But the tree of all trees, when a beautiful line, rather than shade, is desired, is the Chinese Cypress. Imagine a line of trees, symmetrical as an arrow and clothed with pea green leaves, of unique shape and downlike softness, and you will have but a faint idea of the superb effect of an avenue of Chinese Cypress.

Your outside lines will next claim your attention. These should be evergreens, because you will desire seclusion both summer and winter.

If you have a patient spirit, if you are willing to wait for the best effects, plant the Nordmann Fir. It is an evergreen, which is absolutely satisfactory. My specimen, planted in 1860, is nearly thirty feet high. Its branches are close and compact, its foliage is glossy, rich, and dark, and its wood is sufficiently tough to resist all ice storms.

Next to this, I like the White Pine. I like its stately trunk, its soft, feathery foliage, and the ocean music of the wind among its branches. Its brittle wood is sometimes broken by ice storms, but its growth is rapid, and it will always give pleasure.

The well-known Norway Spruce is always safe to plant. Its growth is rapid, and, when young, the contrast of its new and old shoots is very pleasing.

The Hemlock, with its fine leaf and graceful habit; the bright green and rapid growing Austrian Pine; the steel-tinted Scotch Fir, and the conical, compact White Spruce, can all be used for your outside lines.

You have, thus, your outlines, and upon these can now be embroidered all sorts of beautiful forms and colors. Aim at strong contrast. Plant the graceful lightness of the Virgilia beside the rich darkness of the Purple Beech; the Red and White Horse Chestnut side by side; the graceful cutleaved Birch by the cutleaved Alder; the American Chestnut by the Tulip tree. The European Beech and the Purple Beech can go together. So in pairs or trios you can plant the Dogwood and the Sassafras. Masses of the former make the woods, in the flowering season, gleam like snow-flakes, while the fragrant and tinted flowers of the latter make a blood purifying drink in spring.

The White and Purple Fringe can go together. The former is one of the most charming flowering trees known, and the latter, under its familiar name of Smoke tree, has been a deserving favorite for generations. The double scarlet and double white Hawthorn can keep each other company, and in beauty are rarely surpassed. The Weeping Beech must stand alone, with plenty of room for its cathedral-like form and its wide spreading, drooping branches. Nothing can surpass the grace and beauty of my specimen forty years old. The Chinese Magnolias give their abundant and showy bloom before the leaves make their appearance in the spring. Of these, the pure white Conspicua, and the rich purple Lenné, with its silver lining, should go together. The Thompsoniana and Gracilis can consort. The Cordata can show its yellow, twice blooming flowers, at the side of the white Macrophylla, on which grows the largest tree flower in this latitude, and leaf surpassed in size only by that of the Paulownia. The M. Soulangeana and Norbetiana, although not strongly contrasting, can go together, while the fragrant glauca and the exquisite Halleana can look up, side by side, at the stately and pyramidal acuminata. All these Magnolias are indispensable to any place which merits ornament. The Halesia, with its snow-drop flowers, the Kolrenteria, with yellow racemes standing up above the top of the crimped foliage, the Snowy Mespilus, the Japan Persimon, with its rich and golden fruit, the Laburnum, with its profusion of drooping yellow racemes, the camellia flowered Peach, unsurpassed for the exquisite richness of its color, the Japan Sophora, the American Mountain Ash, with its profusion of golden berries, the Euonymus, or Burning Bush, with its brilliant scarlet seed vessels, and the unique Salisburia, stretching out its branchless arms, clothed with abundant fern-like leaves, all are needed to perfect the beauty of your grounds.

The Kentucky Coffee Tree should not be forgotten. Its naked limbs, destitute of spray, give it a marked character in winter, while its clean, deli

cate foliage, and its habit of turning up its leaf-edges to the sun, give the appearance, without the reality, of dense foliage. This peculiarity would make it also a good street tree.

The Judas Trees are very bright, with their pink flowers covering the branches. The Japan species, more dwarf than the American or European, has more abundant, larger, and deeper colored purplish-pink flowers. Nothing in its season is more showy, and it is among the most beautiful of the introductions from Japan. If you have room, plant all the Oaks. There are fifty or more varieties, including the atropurpurea, as dark as the purple beech, the concordia, with its rich golden color, the pendula, with its graceful weeping branches, and the argentea, whose silver edges are like a cloud with

the sun behind it.

Some thirty years ago I planted on my lawn all the varieties of American oaks, and few of my trees give me now more pleasure. The Larch, with its refreshing color should not be forgotten. The leptolepsis, from Japan, is the best, then the glauca, with its light colored foliage, and the common European, darker in its tints. They all contrast well together. Against these stately trees should be embroidered at a proper distance the lower weeping varieties, the weeping Birch, the dwarf weeping Cherry, the weeping Sophora, a striking and beautiful tree, the weeping American Cypress, a new variety of decided character, originating at Flushing, and throwing its branches to the ground as decidedly as the well known Kilmarnock willow. The American weeping Willow is as decided in its droop as a fountain; the Camperdown weeping Elm curves down like an umbrella, while the weeping Slippery Elm has long graceful curves, which are very beautiful when grafted on a tree twenty feet high. The weeping Larch throws down its small branchlets, while its long arms reach out in giant length as if it would grasp all its neighbors. Its picturesque grotesqueness make my specimen, twenty-five years planted, one of the most striking of

trees.

Among more recent introductions are many which the true connoisseur will seize with avidity.

Acer colchicum rubrum novum is a very attractive maple, with its red shoots, leaf stocks, and young leaves. Acer schwedleri is very handsome, with young shoots, leaf stalks, and young leaves of a bright purplish crimson. Acer laciniatum, occulatum, and sobergii are all striking varieties. The cut-leaved Horse Chestnut, with its shred like leaves, is very unique. The fastigiate Birch is, like the Lombardy Poplar, distinct in its shape; the elegans and the youngii with their pendulous heads, are among the most beautiful of weeping trees. The purple Birch is of recent origin, and its dark purple leaves contrast beautifully with its white bark. The weeping variegated Cherry, the weeping jaspidea Ash, the weeping Honey Locust with the delicate foliage of its parent, Bujotii, the curious cut-leaved Madeira Nut, cut-leaved Linden with its rose colored bark, and the golden Linden with its yellow bark and foliage. The Ulmus berardi and viminalis are beautiful miniature elms, and the Siberian Elm is remarkable for holding its leaves long after other trees are stripped by the frost.

Decidous trees, among which are those I have mentioned, should never be planted with evergreens. Contact spoils both, and I will name here a few of the last which contrast well. There can be planted together the common and silver-leaved Hemlock, the Norway spruce and its long-armed child elata; the oriental Spruce, with its delicate refined tone, and the sturdy but compact white Spruce, with its glaucous tint. Abies polita, with its brown arms and its compatriot alcoquiana, can go together; while Menziesii, with its steel colored, sharp leaved arms can defend them both.

The Piceas nobilis, grandis, and pichta can go together. The Cephalonica and the Cilicica, the delicate amabilis, and the Parsonsii, with its leaves curling up over the stem, pronounced in England, where we sent it twenty years ago, the finest conifer known look well in groups. The most striking conrast is made by the Nordmann fir and the Engelmann spruce, the former rich, dark, and glossy, the latter with a soft delicate sage blue tint, rarely found except in some of the tints of an autumn sunset.

The Austrian Pine and the Scotch Fir can go together, the graceful Mexican pine Ayacahuite, with its light colored pendant branches, and the darker Monticola Pine, with its stiffer form.

The Atlas Cedar should be planted by itself, and, if possible, near an upper window from which only its beauty can be fairly shown, the leaves growing thickly on the upper side of each branch. It is the nearest approach to the Cedar of Lebanon possible in this climate.

Now that your trees are planted, your work is more than half done, for your foreground can be filled up with shrubs at your leisure. They are easily transplanted, and can be moved about at pleasure until you get the color contrasts you desire.

However beautiful are recent introductions, I have a lingering fondness for old favorites. Their associations always bring up pleasant memories. When a child, my chamber window opened upon a large Syringo, crowned with white flowers, in June, whose fragrance would be wafted over my bed, while a cat bird, with its horrible call, followed by its sweetest note, would tell me to get up.

The fragrance of the young leaves of the common Lilac bring up now memories of the old home, whilst the Purple Fringe, with the western sun glinting its brown, seems like a golden memory of distant days.

The brilliant clusters of the Trumpet Creeper overhung the study in which, then some eight years old, I was locked away from all the breathing charms of a day in June, until I could recite without failing my hic-haec-hoc.

How I delighted to crack the full bladders of the Colutea and carry Sweet Scented Shrubs in my hand until the heat brought out their delicious fragrance. The woods were then crowded with the white clothed Dogwood, and I can hear in memory now the mellow notes of the thrush bidding farewell to the setting sun. The currants and strawberries of that day had a flavor unknown now to my older palate, while I wandered about my father's garden picking here and gazing there, and wondering if the world held. anything half so beautiful as those perfect days of June.

Yet, although dreaming over those days, we must not forget the acquisitions of the present. While thinking of the silver of our own, we must be willing to see the gold of our children's youth. A new gem in the crown of a monarch will sometimes out shine the old, and the whole world is full of newly discovered beauty, to charm our eyes and thoughts..

In our early days we knew very little of the Rhododendron, with its broad rich evergreen foliage, and its numerous varities with brilliant colors. The Ghent Azalea, that gem of shrubs, without which no garden of taste can now be supposed to exist, was then rarely seen. Now a hundred varieties are found, with shades of white, salmon, orange, scarlet, pink, and yellow, at least one quarter of which are American seedlings.

We knew nothing of the snow-white Exochorda, the fragrant Daphne cneorum, the various deutzias and spireas, the Forsythia, with its golden bloom, the Oakleaved and Japan Hydrangeas, the former unsurpassed in its autumnal foliage, the latter unequaled for its autumnal flowers.

The beautiful Stuartia, with its white fringed petals, the Callicarpa,