tive Cut-Leaved Elder is
one of the most beautiful ornaments any place can have. It bears
enormous cymes of delicate, lace-like, fragrant flowers in June and
July. These are followed by purple berries, which make the bush as
attractive as when in bloom.

The Syringa, or Mock Orange, is one of our favorites. It grows to a
height of eight and ten feet and is therefore well adapted to places in
the back row, or in the rear of the garden. Its flowers, which are borne
in great profusion, are a creamy white, and very sweet-scented.

The double-flowered Plum is a most lovely shrub. It blooms early in
spring, before its leaves are out. Its flowers are very double, and of a
delicate pink, and are produced in such profusion that the entire plant
seems under a pink cloud.

Another early bloomer, somewhat similar to the Plum, is the Flowering
Almond, an old favorite. This, however, is of slender habit, and should
be given a place in the front row. Its lovely pink-and-white flowers are
borne all along the gracefully arching stalks, making them look like
wreaths of bloom that Nature had not finished by fastening them together
in chaplet form.

It is not to be understood that the list given above includes all the
desirable varieties of shrubs suited to amateur culture. It does,
however, include the cream of the list for general-purpose gardening.
There are many other kinds that are well worth a place in any garden,
but some of them are inclined to be rather too tender for use at the
north, without protection, and others require a treatment which they
will not be likely to get from the amateur gardener, therefore I would
not advise the beginner in shrub-growing to undertake their culture.

Many an amateur gardener labors under the impression that all shrubs
must be given an annual pruning. He doesn't know just how he got this
impression, but--he has it. He looks his shrubs over, and sees no actual
necessity for the use of the knife, but--pruning must be done, and he
cuts here, and there, and everywhere, without any definite aim in view,
simply because he feels that something of the kind is demanded of him.
This is where a great mistake is made. So long as a shrub is healthy and
pleasing in shape let it alone. It is not necessary that it should
present the same appearance from all points of view. That would be to
make it formal, prim--anything but graceful. Go into the fields and
forests and take lessons from Nature, the one garden