37G STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



THE YELLOW WOOD. 



I confess to a very decided preference for the old liquid, musical name, Vir- 

 f/ilia lutea, as botanically applied to the tree commonly called Yellow Wood. 

 But the proper authorities have declared for the more difficult and rasping 

 name, Cladrastis tinctoria, so we must even submit. Whatever may be said 

 of tlie name, however, the Cladrastis tincioria, or Yellow Wood, is worthy of 

 much praise for its many excellent qualities as an ornamental tree. Why it 

 is not used more I cannot imagine. Unquestionably it has been widely known 

 for at least 50 years, having been noticed by Michaux at the very beginning of 

 this century. It abounds chiefly in Tennessee, associated with the Kentucky 

 Coffee Tree, lied Mulberry, AYalnut, etc. The wood is, of course, of a deep 

 yellow color, whence the name. In branching, leafage and flowers, our speci- 

 men is simply admirable, and is only a fair example of a Y^ellow Wood of its 

 age, grown under tolerably favorable circumstances. The smooth and slightly 

 wrinkled, light-colored bark swathes the rounded growth of trunk and wide- 

 spreading branches in a way that makes one think of some agile, clean-limbed 

 animal. It is literally a tough, brittle-wooded tree, of very eccentric growth, 

 picturcsqe in both trunk and branches. The leaves are those of a leguminous 

 plant, light-green, small and by no means thick, but growing rather on the 

 outer parts of the branches. As the light falls on it at times, we might think 

 it a round-headed, large-leaved Locust, were not the branches and trunk so 

 distinctlv characteristic. 



The crowning beauty, however, of the Yellow Wood is its flowers, which, 

 unfortunately, do not come every year by any means. But they do not need 

 to be scarce to render them precious, for their beauty is an all-sufficient recom- 

 mendation. Seen under favorable lights during June, these blooms, hanging 

 in loose trusses, white and Wistaria-like, are worthy rivals and mates for either 

 the Laburnum or AVistaria. Their effect is also much enhanced by the pecul- 

 iar light foliage and rounded formation of the tree. 



Indeed, I am confident that if people would only seek out and realize the 

 beauty of the Yellow Wood, it would require but a few years to secure well- 

 developed specimens on numerous lawns; whereas now it is a rarity and wonder 

 wherever seen in positive excellence. Samuel Parsons. 



ORXAMENTIXG FARMS. 



The farmer is looked upon as an exceedingly practical man, so much so 

 that he neglects the encouragement of any disposition towards the ornamental 

 in his prosecution of methods tending to the development of what is useful. 

 In his dress he is supposed to be plain and practical; in furnishing his house 

 he must, of course, avoid all ornaments that have no use in the economy of 

 the business of which he is the head. This we have said as coming from peo- 

 ple who look at farmers but are not in sympathy with them. 



Still with this idea so prevalent, as one travels over the railways of Michigan 

 and takes notes of the farm-house surroundings, it is a rare exception to find 

 a single farm on wliich something has not been done toward the ornamenting of 

 the premises. And in the aggregate there is an immense expenditure upon 

 the farms in our own State that has no other object than the adornment of 

 the premises. lu some cases we see the tendency outcropping in the planting 



