ORNAMENTAL TREES. 47 



twenty cords of wood to the acre, and it requires a good 

 growth of wood to produce that ; but a dozen birch- trees will 

 grow where only one oak would grow. There is no difficulty 

 in planting birch-trees. They sow their own seeds, — the 

 birds carry them. As proof of this, I might refer to a gravel- 

 bed near Charles River, in Needham, from which the gravel 

 came with which the Back Bay was filled, and which was dug 

 down twenty or thirty feet. You would not have supposed 

 there was a seed left there ; yet to-day there is quite a good 

 growth of wood in that place. White birch and pine will 

 grow in just such gravel and sand as that, and they will soon 

 form a soil there, as their leaves fall and decay : so that soon 

 you will have considerable soil where there was none before. 

 For general use and street-planting I think a good deal of 

 the sugar-maple, although it is a little too set and. prim to be 

 graceful. I believe, also, in the Norway maple. It is a fine 

 tree. It does not fade in the fall so beautifully as some of 

 our trees, — as the white maple or sugar-maple, for instance, 

 — but it is a fine tree. It has a magnificent dense foliage 

 that you find on no other maple. I think it has a dense, 

 heavy, massive, magnificent, green foliage. Is that not so, 

 Mr. Manning ? 



Mr. Mankdstg. Yes, sir. 



Mr. Hyde. I think it ought to be cultivated more. A 

 word about the American elm. This is a magnificent tree ; 

 but it is subject to one drawback, and that is the canker- 

 worm in localities where the canker-worm is found. You 

 would be astonished to see how soon you can grow an elm. 

 I used to grow elm-trees by thousands in the nursery. You 

 can plant the seed, and in two years have trees four feet 

 high. If you want to see beautiful trees, go up through this 

 region of country, through Lancaster, and see the fine elm- 

 trees which are there to be found. The elm-tree lives to a 

 great age. I know it may be said, "What, plant an elm- 

 seed ! Do you expect to see any of the trees ? " Yes, I do ; 

 but, if I do not, somebody else will. The trees which have 

 grown from the elm-seed I have planted (and I am not an 

 old man, although I am sometimes called so) are to-day 

 twenty inches in diameter : so you see they grow very rap- 

 idly. We ought to plant more trees like the oak and the 

 ash trees for timber. For those purposes they would be 

 valuable. 



