In many instances the purchaser of the acre may find a lasting pleasure in developing a specialty.  He may desire to gather about him all the drooping or weeping trees that will grow in his latitude, or he may choose to turn his acre largely into a nut-orchard, and delight his children with a harvest which they will gather with all the zest of the frisky red squirrel.  If one could succeed in obtaining a bearing tree of Hale’s paper-shell hickory-nut, he would have a prize indeed.  Increasing attention is given to the growing of nut-trees in our large nurseries, and there would be no difficulty in obtaining a supply.

In passing from this subject of choice in deciduous trees and shrubs, I would suggest, in addition to visits to woods and copse, to the well-ornamented places of men who have long gratified a fine taste in this respect, that the reader also make time to see occasionally a nursery like that of S.B.  Parsons & Co., at Flushing, N.Y.  There is no teaching like that of the eyes; and the amateur who would do a bit of landscape-gardening about his own home learns what he would like and what he can do by seeing shrubs and trees in their various stages of growth and beauty.

I shall treat the subject of evergreens at the close of this chapter.

As a rule, I have not much sympathy with the effort to set out large trees in the hope of obtaining shade more quickly.  The trees have to be trimmed up and cut back so greatly that their symmetry is often destroyed.  They are also apt to be checked in their growth so seriously by such removal that a slender sapling, planted at the same time, overtakes and passes them.  I prefer a young tree, straight-stemmed, healthy, and typical of its species or variety.  Then we may watch its rapid natural development as we would that of a child.  Still, when large trees can be removed in winter with a great ball of frozen earth that insures the preservation of the fibrous roots, much time can be saved.  It should ever be remembered that prompt, rapid growth of the transplanted tree depends on two things—­plenty of small fibrous roots, and a fertile soil to receive them.  It usually happens that the purchaser employs a local citizen to aid in putting his ground in order.  In every rural neighborhood there are smart men—­“smart” is the proper adjective; for they are neither sagacious nor trustworthy, and there is ever a dismal hiatus between their promises and performance.  Such men lie in wait for newcomers, to take advantage of their inexperience and necessary absence.  They will assure their confiding employers that they are beyond learning anything new in the planting of trees—­which is true, in a sinister sense.  They will leave roots exposed to sun and wind—­ in brief, pay no more attention to them than a baby-farmer would bestow on an infant’s appetite; and then, when convenient, thrust them into a hole scarcely large enough for a post.  They expect to receive their money long before the dishonest character of their