10 



A^IERICAN FORESTRY 



ARTISTIC TITINNINC. oi' lUKCH THICKET. 



your idea of an American forest 

 meadow then you and I are thinking 

 along different lines ! 



An old field in the forest irresistibly 

 calls to mind the thickets with which 

 Nature is wont to invade these places. 

 To the layman the artistic treatment of 

 the thicket seems the most hopeless task 

 of all. It is just brush, and the quicker 

 it is obliterated entirely the better, so 

 it would seem. r)Ut, really, a great deal 

 can be done with a thicket ; in fact, a 

 few judicious touches here and there 

 will make you fall in love with it and 

 ever after have a warm spot in your 

 heart for the once despised "brush 

 patch." A little analysis will show you 



that it is almost invariably composed of 

 trees that are wing-seeded or have 

 sjirung from bird-dropped seeds — 

 Ijirches, aspens, wild cherries, sour 

 gums and the like. None of them will 

 ever become imposing forest trees. 

 There are two standard methods of 

 treatment open to you ; either use the 

 thicket as a background to set off some 

 fine specimens, or treat it frankly as a 

 thicket and make it beautiful. Down in 

 Southern Utah and Nevada Nature 

 grows silver spruces and aspens to- 

 gether, a hint that we may put into 

 ])ractice by using the thicket as a back- 

 ground for blue spruces. They never 

 look better than when contrasted against 



