SECRETARY'S PORTFOLIO, 493 



it will cost you money and thoughtful care to do it. Fine lar^e maples, elms 

 and basswoods can be placed where you want them and make a nice shade the 

 first season. Experts will move trees six, eight, ten inches and even a foot in 

 diameter and guarantee success, but they must have pay for it. The work 

 must be done with a great deal of care. How much will it cost ? Well to 

 plant a tree nicely, that is six inches in diameter, will cost ten to twelve dollars 

 and watchful care for two seasons, but if you have the money to spare it will 

 pay. It certainly is much better to get one nice tree moved from near by and 

 made to live than to spend ten dollars with some agent, who will bring you a 

 lot of little trees with long names, which are wholly unsuited to your place, and 

 perhaps not hardy at all in your latitude. — S. Q. Lent. 



Lombardy Poplar. — Prof. L. H. Bailey says: 



After much study of this tree in many places, I am prepared to take a posi- 

 tion between the extreme professional gardener and the general planter. I 

 agree with the gardener that it is by no means a suitable tree for ordinary 

 yards, or for continuous lines of shade trees to be stretched for miles along a 

 highway. It is not a tree for low grounds or for clumps in level pastures. In 

 all these places it is too formal or out of keeping. But on hills, especially 

 when seen from a distance, no tree is more picturesque than this. It is a rule 

 worth remembering that high trees are suitable for high places, and low trees 

 or bushes for low places. Of high trees none give such an exaggerated idea of 

 height as the Lombardy poplar. If I had a hill on my farm I should plant a 

 clump of these trees upon it. A few' Lombardies near a long building: serve to 

 relieve the monotony, while at the same time their rigid and formal outlines 

 are in entire harmony with the building. We all admire the pictures of long 

 Italian palaces which are planted amid Lombardy poplars. If the barn is on 

 an eminence, plant five or six of these trees beside it. A small group of these 

 trees in the distance beyond a water scene is also desirable to give spirit to the 

 level foreground, especially if the surrounding country is level. 



Landscape gardeners usually discourage the setting of trees in rows. Such an 

 arrangement is too stiff, too much at variance with nature, and affords too 

 little variety to give the highest pleasure to the beholder. If trees must be set 

 in rows, however, I know of no better species for the purpose than the Lom- 

 bardy poplar, provided the rows be not too long. Being itself a formal object, 

 it appears to good advantage in formal surroundings. Along a roadside, on 

 elevated ground, a row of Lombardies ten to twenty rods long is often desirable. 

 It is always a temptation to plant too many Lombardies. They should not be 

 planted everywhere or in great abundance. Indeed, it is only when they are 

 introduced sparingly into a scene that they are to be tolerated. Objects so 

 alike in appearance as are the different individuals of Lombardy poplars soon 

 weary the eye if they are seen in abundance. One or two trees in a landscape 

 are always better than a hundred. One tree will often give spirit to a whole 

 landscape of low-headed trees. Their effect is always best when they are seen 

 from a distance. 



The greatest hindrance to the planting of Lombardies, however, is the short 

 life of the tree. In the North, trees often begin to die when but fifteen to 

 twenty years old, and I have seen very few perfect specimens which had attained 

 to fifty years. 



Xative Thorns. — " Senex," in Philadelphia Press, speaks a good word 

 for our beautiful thorns: 



