272 TRANSACTIONS OF THE NORTHERN 



LATITUDE. 



As a part of the home spirit, it is well that latitude be consulted in 

 style of building, and in improving grounds. 



Not merely in an economical point of view, but for fitness of ex- 

 pression, we would choose at the north sheltered situations, warm brown 

 tints (in the walls), pointed gables with deep protective eaves, windows 

 with heavy mullions and diamond panes, and a liberal supply of the 

 conifera, which match these so well, planted around. 



At the south, the arbor^e that belong to that region, with a style of 

 building in keeping with the same. Low, broad roofs, wide verandas, 

 windows wide and large, and so constructed as to look as if there were 

 no glass in them at all, only an open space to court the lazy breezes. 

 Palms and round Magnolias with their varnished, flapping leaves, make 

 suitable shade around such a home. 



The people of the North, and those of the South of Europe, 

 taught this lesson centuries ago, — they learned it from Nature herself. 

 But with our cosmopolitan tastes we build Italian villas and Grecian 

 temples at the North ; and, I doubt not, if we should travel South we 

 would find gothic structures there. Don't suppose that we would have 

 all dwellings on the same parallel of latitude of the same pattern. By 

 no means. • But, " a word to the wise is sufficient." 



* 



NATIONALITY. 



We must say that we love to see American trees about the dwell- 

 ing of an American citizen. One whose pride is in his birth-right, the 

 glorious right of suffrage, whose wealth is in his strong right arm, and 

 the honest toil which makes him lord of the soil, — it is fitting that he 

 should find in the forests of his native land the decorations of his 

 home. 



We have trees plenty, beautiful as any country can furnish, large 

 and small and middle-sized, evergreen and deciduous, foliage light 

 and silvery, foliage dark and glossy; and for rich tints in autumn, every 

 one admits that we can challenge the world. 



For large trees, what can surpass some of our Oaks and Maples, our 

 Elms and Buttonwood, our Tulip-poplar {Liriodcndroji), our Birches 

 and a host of others ; or for trees of smaller growth, our Judas-tree 

 (Cercis)^ Fringe-tree {Chionanthus), Sassafras {Lams), Horse-chestnut 

 {^sculus), Csila-mbsi {Catalpa), and so on to the end of the catalogue of 

 deciduous trees, and of the evergreens, Pines and Spruces, and Arbor 

 Vitaes and Cedars. But you do not desire us to produce a copy ot 

 Humphrey Marshall's "Arbustum Americanum." 



One oak in particular we beg leave to mention, as having been 

 the special favorite of our much esteemed friend. Dr. Darlington, a 

 man well known to lovers of Botany. We allude to the Scarlet Oak 

 {Quercus Cocci}tea),\\iw% described, " a native of the middle states — a 

 noble tree, often eighty feet high. The leaves, borne on long petioles, 

 are a bright, lively green on both surfaces, with four deep cuts on each 



