ORNAMENTING THE HOME GROUNDS .-
Shrubs are valued for their bloom as well as for form and foliage. Each variety will serve some special end. As a rule plant in irregular groups, as directed for trees. At projecting points in shrub masses, plant some hardy herbaceous perennials. Use vines for porches or for covering a half dead tree-top or rubbish pile. Plant flowers mostly at the side of the house in irregular but gracefully-shaped beds, and about the trunks of trees when they are young. per haps. No special paths are needed about flower or shrub groups. Rock work is seldom satisfactory, and is only appropriate in a retired portion of the grounds. A pile of shells, rocks and stones in the front yard is sadly out of place. Heap them in some back and shady corner, and you will find great delight in transplanting from the woods and meadows an assortment of hepaticas, spring beauties, bloodroot, trilliums, bell-worts, phloxes and ferns. If you have a pond near by, introduce some water lilies, cat-tail flags, pickerel weed, arrow-head, and near by set some weeping willows and birches and ashes. Do not despise flower, shrub or tree because it is native or "common." As a rule the best known is better than the imported variety. Give thought and attention to all the details of making a pleasant home. It is a worthy work. You will be surprised to find how much beauty can be attained at little cost, and how rapidly everything hastens forward to the completed plan in your own mind. You will have a constant comfort and a fresh hope realized every year as the trees grow, and transformation follows transformation toward the fulfillment of your original design .- PROF. W. J. BEAL, Michigan Agricultural College.