]Slt)RTH KENNEBEC SOCIETY. 199 



nurseries, and dotted, at various points, in the irregular style of 

 nature, with single towering elms, and graceful maples, and 

 with clumps of hemlocks, firs and pines. All these things are 

 dictated by economy, by providence, by worldly wisdom, by any 

 attribute looking to profit, no less than by refined taste, or the 

 love of the beautiful or the picturesque. If a handsome fence 

 is as good as any other to protect your lands, it is better than 

 one that is not handsome; it is the boundary of your domain, 

 and a barrier against the incursions of wandering cattle, and 

 other creatures roaming at large ; and it is an ornament to your 

 farm besides. The trees on the roadside cast a shade grateful 

 to the traveler, wave their leavy arms, as if to welcome and 

 honor him as he approaches or passes by on his journey. Some 

 rigid utilitarian may say: why take so much pains with such 

 trees ? why not have all your trees fruit trees ? Let the reply 

 be — there is land enough for all purposes. Besides, no class 

 of fruit trees, present the majesty of the elm, or the height and 

 grace of the maple, or the cone-shape and the perpetual green 

 of the fir, or the unfading beauty of the hemlock, cedar or pine. 

 Also, if the Creator meant that trees should be only servicea- 

 ble for wood and to bear fruit, for what did he intend the vari- 

 ety of the forest ? I can see, and so can you, that it was the 

 purpose of Infinite Wisdom, in calling forth the diversity of the 

 woods, in size and height, in trunks, and limbs, and leaves, as 

 well as in caus-ing the numberless flowers, with their manifold 

 shapes and hues, to please the love of beauty, " to minister 

 delight to man," to touch and to charm him with grand and 

 lovely shows. The orchard wears and unfolds a beauty of its 

 own, but it cannot supply the place of the ornamental trees 

 fi'om our New England forests. I know a farmer who, till re- 

 cently, would not consent to have even fruit trees growing upon 

 his grounds. Two-thirds of his earthly life is past. A young 

 orchard is now growing a little distance from his mansion, as 

 an offering, reluctantly granted, to the continual importunity of 

 his wife. It will not be likely to trouble him much with shade 

 or fruit in his old age. I hope his wife, (who is younger,) and 

 liis children, will see the day when the round umbrageous tops 

 of the trees shall touch each other, and hang to the ground with 

 their green, and red, and russet globes. One day, seeing one 



