rtise liquids which are
claimed to do this work effectively, but I have had no occasion to test
them, as the borax application has never failed to rout the ant on my
lawn, and when I find a remedy that does its work well I depend upon it,
rather than experiment with something of whose merits I know nothing.
"Prove all things and hold fast to that which is good."

Fighting the ant is an easier matter than exterminating weeds, as
ant-hills are generally localized, and it is possible to get at them
without injuring a large amount of sward as one cannot help doing when
he applies liquids to weeds. The probabilities are, however, that ants
cannot be entirely driven away from the lawn after they have taken
possession of it. They will shift their quarters and begin again
elsewhere. But you can keep them on the run by repeated applications of
whatever proves obnoxious to them, and in this way you can prevent
their doing a great deal of harm. To be successful in this you will have
to be constantly on the lookout for them, and so prompt in the use of
the weapons you employ against them that they are prevented from
becoming thoroughly established in new quarters.

PLANTING THE LAWN

When the lawn is made we begin to puzzle over the planting of trees and
shrubbery.

What shall we have?

Where shall we have it?

One of the commonest mistakes made by the man who is his own gardener is
that of over-planting the home-grounds with trees and shrubs. This
mistake is made because he does not look ahead and see, with the mind's
eye, what the result will be, a few years from now, of the work he does
to-day.

[Illustration: IVY, CLIMBING ROSES, AND COLORADO BLUE SPRUCE]

The sapling of to-day will in a short time become a tree of good size,
and the bush that seems hardly worth considering at present will develop
into a shrub three, four, perhaps six feet across. If we plant closely,
as we are all inclined to because of the small size of the material we
use at planting time, we will soon have a thicket, and it will be
necessary to sacrifice most of the shrubs in order to give the few we
leave sufficient room to develop in. Therefore do not think, when you
set out plants, of their _present_ size, but of the size they will have
attained to five or six years from now. Do not aim at immediate effect,
as most of us do in our impatience for results. Be content to
_plant_--and _wait_. I shall give no diagrams for lawn-planting for t