erns, while it will
afford an endless shelter for every sort of wild thing that you may pick
up in your rambles. Of course you need not plant it all at once, but
having made the plan, develop it at leisure.

You should never quite finish a country place unless you expect to leave
it. The something more in garden life is the bale of hay before the
horse's nose on the uphill road. Last year, for almost a week, we
thought our garden quite as finished as the material and surroundings
would allow,--it was a strange, dismal, hollow sort of feeling. However,
it was soon displaced by the desire that I have to collect my best roses
in one spot, add to them, and gradually form a rosary where the Garden
Queen and all her family may have the best of air, food, and lodgings.
You see I feared that the knoll, hardy beds, and rose garden were not
sufficient food for your mind to ruminate, so I add the fern fence as a
sort of dessert!

[Illustration: AN ENDLESS SHELTER FOR EVERY SORT OF WILD
THING.]

"Where is the shade that ferns need?" I hear you ask, "for except
under some old apple trees and where the bird cherries grow (and they,
though beautiful at blooming time and leaf fall, attract tent
caterpillars), the stone wall lies in the sun!"

Yes, but in one of the woodland homes of this region I have seen a
screen placed by such a rustic stone fence that it not only served the
purpose of giving light shade, but was a thing of beauty in itself,
dividing the vista into many landscapes, the frame being long or upright
according to the planter's fancy.

Do you remember the old saying "When away keep open thine eyes, and so
pack thy trunk for the home-going?"

On this drive of ours I've been cramming my trunk to overflowing, and
yet the ideas are often the simplest possible, for the people of this
region, with more inventive art than money, have the perfect gift of
adapting that which lies nearest to hand.

You spoke in your last chronicle of the screen of white birches through
which you saw the sun rise over the meadows of Opal Farm. This birch
springs up in waste lands almost everywhere. We have it in abundance in
the wood lot on the side of our hill, and it is scattered through the
wet woods below our wild walk, showing that all it needs is a foothold.

Because it is common and the wood rather weak and soft, landscape
gardening has rather passed it by, turning a cold shoulder, yet the
slender tree is very beautiful. True, it h