Sprays of the Tulip Tree 



HARDWOODS ON THE COUNTRY 



ESTATE 



Bv Warren H. Miller, M. F. 



IT IS with much pleasurable antici- 

 pation that I start in upon this 

 introduction to my favorites among 

 what may be called the isolated 

 tree species among the broad leaves. 

 For many of these do not occur in 

 large families as do the oaks and maples 

 and hickories, but rather a single 

 representative, or two at most, is 

 accorded us here in America, large as 

 the family may be elsewhere on the 

 globe. Yet these trees represent some 

 of the most beautiful and the most 

 stately of all our forest denizens, and 

 without them we would feel that many 

 beloved old favorites would be wanting. 

 I refer to the tulip tree, the linden, the 

 sweet and sour gums, the two dogwoods, 

 the two willows, the wild cherries, the 

 two walnuts, the chestnuts, and that 

 noble gray gaint, the beech. Can you 

 conceive of a forest without these 

 trees? And could you forgive the lack 



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of variety that would ensue from their 

 total omission? Commercially, for the 

 sake of selling large blocks of lumber 

 all of a grade and kind, we might 

 tolerate the European system of pure 

 forests, all oaks, or all hornbeam, or all 

 beech ; but to the country estate owner, 

 while he may have his stands of pure 

 oak and his sugar bush, his forest as a 

 whole will not satisfy unless it presents 

 a landscape bordered at least with a 

 fair representation of the amazing" 

 diversity of our native tree species. 



The liriodendron or tulip tree is one 

 of these satisfactory old favorites, 

 growing rapidly to a huge coliunn of 

 tree, a veritable factory chimney in 

 bark, rising sheer without a limb to a 

 fork 50 feet from the ground. And 

 then its noble head, solid and mighty, 

 bedecked with gay tulip flowers in 

 June, a grand shaft of orange yellow 

 leaves in October, and all through the 



