13 Wisconsin State Horticultural Society. 



come to define it it means a great deal. It means not only 

 a shade and shelter but it menns something that will fill up 

 vacancies and hide defects. That answer that said an or- 

 namental tree must be imported, i don't accept at all, be- 

 cause my experience has taught me that the best ornamen- 

 tal trees we have in this country are natives. So when we 

 talk about ornamental trees and put them in our catalogues, 

 we mean trees that will shelter and hide defects in ou*;- 

 grounds, so that they will give a background around build- 

 ings so that people passing by will see a background of 

 beautiful trees sometimes placed there by nature and some- 

 times by man. They are all ornamental trees. 



The next question that would occur is. What ornamental 

 trees? Now this matter of the choice of ornamental trees 

 has just as many sides to it as there are tastes, and situa- 

 tions and circumstances. One gentleman said to me this 

 morning — I don't see him here present, I am sorry the gen- 

 tleman is away. He says: " These elms are a failure." I 

 said. Why? "O," he said, "the wind breaks them down." 

 Well, they are in that sense pretty near a failure, for if the 

 land is very rich, and if they have a strong hold, the violent 

 winds are apt to break them down. I might as well answer 

 to that, where the elm is liable to break down from any 

 cause, from rapidity of growth or wrong structure it should 

 be cut back. Well, said I, if the elm is a failure, what next? 

 " Why, the sugar maple, the old tree of New England." 

 Really that is my first choice, too. I was brought up in the 

 shade of sugar maple trees that my fathers planted over a 

 hundred years a^o. But it is a slow tree. But the gentle- 

 man said: "Yes, but it is always pretty." Now I like a 

 sugar maple tree because it is always pretty. It is a slow 

 grow-ng tree, but its leaf, when it falls, is a beautiful leaf, 

 and it leaves a clean, handso^me tree, handsome even in 

 winter. The elm comes first, the generally accepted 

 ornamental tree. The maple will come next. In many 

 locations the white ash would be placed first. I know a 

 gentleman in this city who would plant notaing but a white 

 ash because white ash will grow where there is only six or 

 eight inches of soil over sixty feet of gravel; and so where 



