ructure's corners or of the line whence it starts
up from the ground. And even if sometimes they do, they take so long to
grow enough to do it, and are so soon gone with the first cold blast,
that the things they are to hide are for the most of the year not
hidden. Besides which, even at their best moments, when undoubtedly they
are very beautiful, they have not a sufficiently substantial look to be
good company for the solid structure they are set against. Sweetly,
modestly, yet obstinately, they confess to every passer-by that they did
not come, but were put there and were put there only last spring.
Shrubs, contrariwise, give a feeling that they have sprung and grown
there in the course of nature and of the years, and so convey to the
house what so many American homes stand in want of--a quiet air of being
long married and a mother of growing children.

"Flowering shrubs of well-chosen kinds are in leaf two-thirds of the
year, and their leafless branches and twigs are a pleasing relief to the
structure's cold nakedness even through the winter. I have seen a house,
whose mistress was too exclusively fond of annuals, stand waiting for
its shoes and stockings from October clear round to August, and then
barefooted again in October. In such gardening there is too much of
love's labor lost. If one's grounds are so small that there is no better
place for the annuals they can be planted against the shrubs, as the
shrubs are planted against the building or fence. At any rate they
should never be bedded out in the midst of the lawn, and quite as
emphatically they should never, alone, be set to mark the boundary lines
of a property."

[Illustration: After the first frost annual plantings cease to be
attractive.]

[Illustration: Shrubbery versus annuals.

The contrast in these two pictures is between two small street plantings
standing in sight of each other, one of annuals with a decorative effect
and lasting three months, the other with shrubberies and lasting nine
months.]

It is hoped these sayings, quoted or otherwise, may seem the more in
place here because they contemplate the aspects likely to characterize
the American garden whenever that garden fully arrives. We like
largeness. There are many other qualities to desire, and to desire even
more; but if we give them also the liking we truly owe them it is right
for us to like largeness. Certainly it is better to like largeness even
for itself, rather than smallness