The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1856-01-30
From the Rural New Yorker.
GROUNDS.

enues, or tastefully arranged gardens of
fruit trees, when we consider that "speed
the pillow is practically, and perhaps
necessarily, the leading motto of a very
large portion of the denizens of rural
dom. Yet it is apparent--lf you ex-
clude amateurs and suburban residents
about our large cities-that, excepting
the standard apple orchard, and per
chance an occasional grove of flourish
ing NAPLES and oaks, reserved for the
building site, through the forethought
of the tasteful owner, the farmers of this
country have too much neglected the re-
fning and pleasing accessories to the
homestead.
The introduction of so many excellent
varieties of fruits, and the rapid increase
of nurseries in many of the States, as
we'll as the prodigality Of our American
forests, of ornamental shade trees and
shrubs, must eventually, it would seem,
force this branch of rural art upon the
attention of every lover of the country.
Indeed, a growing interest has been
awakened in this respect within a few
past years, that certainly promises much
for the future--at least with that por-
ton of the landowners who can, or think
they can, afford to let the trees grow.
It should be the aim of the thrifty,
b~eforehanded farmer, to render a coun-
try life pleasant and attractive by some
associations beyond the merely useful.
=" Encourage the beautiful-the useful
encourages ITSELF" is a good maxim,
and it is to be hoped many may be in
duced to act upon this advice, and make
a beginning the present year, if not
more than the adoption iuto their door
yards of a few handsome specimens of
wildwood, white ash, rock elm, rock
maple, or other native trees, from the
nearest woodland. The work need not
be done all at once but a few seasons
perseverance thereafter, as leisure or
fancy may suggest, will accomplish it.
We trust, as the ability of the rural
population improves, and their attention
becomes moro generally directed to the
embellishments of their homes, they will
proportionately crafty those tastes
which are not wanting, but only dor
mant, from constant attention to the
more practical details of husbandry. A
liberal display of accomplishment in this
charming department of rural affairs not
only surely exerts a genial, humanizing
influence upon the inmates and upon
neighbors, but often is an index that
gives the first favorable impression to
the eye of the passcr-by, who pauses to
admire a tidy farmhouse, encircled and
skirted with ample pleasure-grounds, or
half empowered with interlacing trees
and vines.
A sufficient area might be enclosed
about every farmers dwelling for the
exhibition of a degree of practical taste
in landscape gardening, and for those
who cannot afford to rear a forest upon
their best grounds purely for shade
there are plenty of substitutes in the
rarer fruits not usually grown in the
orchard, many of them ornamental and
quite appropriate as lawn trees. We
would prefer planting near our premi-
ses at first a good proportion of trees
that combine beauty of form and foliage,
with fruits for the family to get a taste
of, or som of the improved varieties of
nuts for the children to gather and crack
during the long winter evenings, instead
of setting out forrest trees exclusively or
on a largr scale. Cherries, apricots,
pears, ounces and grapes. as well as
some of the finer kinds of shelbarks, Ma
deria nuts, almonds, and chestnuts, are
in keeping with the dooryard or park,
and are planted less frequently than
they deserve to be.
Meantime, room could be found for a
sprinkling of u native oak, elm, ma
pie, pine, hemlock, ETC., from the woods,
interspersed with an occasional group
or arbor of some of the many elegant
of both deciduous and evergreen
tire es and shrubs cultivated in the nur-
series. The horse chestnut, for q dense,
deep shade-the mountain ash, conspic-
nous from its profusion of bright scarlet
berries-the larch, for a spire-like form,
and its vivid silky foliage, and the weep
willow, without a peer, for pendant
yracefulness, and desirable for its long
Ieason of verdure, though not indigo
lous to our climate-are all of them
itrikipg for contrast, and should not be
overlooked in localities where they can
De readily procured.
Many, doubtless, are discouraged or
Ietcrred from planting, either for the
rove or orchard, through an impotence {
o enjoy the fruits of their labor ; for I
mike the majority of farm improve |
nents, a lapse of time is required to :
ring them to we'll grown maturity /; yet {
D many cases trees of large size can be h
and it should be borne in mind t
hat a tree once we'll established is con- t
progressing, that there is a !.
eauty and a source of satisfaction in a
very stage of its after development to e
he real lover of Nature. il