STATE HORTICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 121 



in which lie Northampton, Hadley and the Deerfields, in Massachu- 

 setts. In the former, as viewed from the foot-hills of the moun- 

 tains on either hand, the wide-spreading, broad-headed evergreen 

 oaks, scattered like sentinels sparsely over the entire valley, are a 

 delight to the eye ; while on the Northampton and Deerfield mead- 

 ows, the magnificent old elms, standing solitary or in pairs and 

 threes, are the glory of the landscape. Jenny Lind thought the lat- 

 ter (the Northampton meadows) one of the finest sights on earth. 

 In the little village of Deerfield the great elms lock arms across a 

 street one hundred feet in width, and voices under that noble arch 

 echo as in a vast empty hall. How light a task it was to set those 

 trees at the first, and how easily to judge, from the chance trees in 

 the meadows, what kind to set and what space to give them! Think 

 what an easy task it would have been, for instance, forty years ago, 

 to plant an avenue of white elm trees from Princeton to Tiskilwa, 

 with spaces of 75 feet in the rows, and the same across the road. It 

 would have been splendid by this time, and in another forty years it 

 would be worth a journey across the continent to ride through that 

 glorious gallery on a June morning! Such an avenue would seem to 

 lead to the land of Beulah, or the Delectable Mountains. Now, 

 here is the chief point I wish to make at this time, viz.: that a level 

 tract and a hilly or uneven tract require different treatment and a 

 different selection of shrubs and trees. I make an exception in the 

 case of the American elm, the king of trees, which, if it can have 

 space, justifies itself everywhere. In maturity it combines in itself 

 grandeur, grace, strength and beauty beyond any tree that grows. 

 It will stand with its feet in the water all tlie year round, and never 

 get catarrh or rheumatism. What locality is there in town or coun- 

 try that this noble tree would not adorn? To be sure, it takes time. 

 He who plants an elm will hardly live to see its matui-ity. But why 

 not, in this line as well as in others, do something for posterity? 

 The boy plants a watermelon seed, and in half an hour digs it up to 

 see if it has sprouted; but we are, or should be, ''children of a larger 

 growth" than that. 



Everything above the turf — the buildings, shrubs, vines, trees — 

 should be so placed as to bring out, to exaggerate, so to speak, the 

 natural features of the landscape. It is especially desirable in our 

 own region of tame and monotonous scenery, that we make the most 

 of such variety of surface, such hills and dales as we have. Nature 

 gives us a hint. On the summit of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, 

 the spire-like redwoods and sugar pines shoot up two hundred and 

 three hundred feet toward the blue, suggesting indefinite and infinite 

 height. The black spruce, with its pointed top, crowns old Grey- 

 lock in famous Berkshire, while in the valley below grow clumps of 

 alders, tufts of willows, fat, round-headed sugar maples, and the 

 sycamore, spreading all abroad by the river bank. An ancient poet 

 saw all this, as poets are apt to do: 



