202 



ON PLANTING SHADE TREES. 



abroad, might well be proud. Would that 

 those of our readers, whose souls are callous 

 to the charms of the lights and shadows that 

 bedeck these bewitching rural towns and 

 villages, would forthwith set out on a pil- 

 grimage to such places as Northampton, 

 Springfield, New-Haven, Pittsfield, Stock- 

 bridge, Woodbury, and the like. 



When we contrast with these lovely rest- 

 ing places for the eye, embowered in 

 avenues of Elms, gracefully drooping 

 like fountains of falling water, or Sugar 

 Maples swelling and towering up like finely 

 formed aatique vases — some of the uncared 

 for towns and villages in our own state, 

 we are almost forced to believe that the 

 famous common schools of New-England 

 teach the assthetics of art, and that the 

 beauty of shade trees is the care of espe- 

 cial professorships. Homer and Virgil, Cice- 

 ro, Manlius, and Tully, shades of the great 

 Greeks and Romans ! — our citizens have 

 named towns after you, but the places that 

 bear your names scarcely hold leafy trees 

 enough to renew the fading laurels round 

 your heads ! — while the direct descend- 

 ants of stern Puritans, who had a holy 

 horror of things ornamental, who cropped 

 their hair, and made penalties for indulgen- 

 ces in fine linen, live in villages oversha- 

 dowed by the very spirit of rural elegance ! 

 It is neither from a want of means, or 

 want of time, or any ignorance of what is 

 essential to the beauty of body or of mind, 

 that we see this neglect of the public be- 

 comingness. There are numbers of houses 

 in all these villages, that boast their pianos, 

 while the last Paris fashions are worn in the 

 parlors, and the freshest periodical literature 

 of both sides of the Atlantic fills the centre 

 tables. But while the comfort and good looks 

 of the individual are sufficiently cared for, 

 the comfort and good looks of the town are 

 sadly neglected. Our education here stops 



short of New-England. We are slow to 

 feel that the character of the inhabitants 

 is always, in some degree, indicated by the 

 appearance of the town. It is, unluckily, 

 no one's especial business to ornament the 

 streets. No one feels it a reproach to him- 

 self, that verdure and beauty do not hang 

 like rich curtains, over the street in which 

 he lives. And thus a whole village or town 

 goes on from year to year, in a shameless 

 state of public nudity and neglect, because 

 no one feels it his particular duty to persuade 

 his neighbors to join him in making the 

 town in which he lives, a gem of rural 

 beauty, instead of a sorry collection of un- 

 interesting houses. 



It is the frequent apology of intelligent 

 persons who live in such places, and are 

 more alive to this glaring defect than the 

 majority, that it is impossible for them to 

 do any thing alone, and their neighbors 

 care nothing about it. 



One of the finest refutations of this kind 

 of delusion, exists in New-Haven. All over 

 the Union, this town is known as the " City 

 of Elms," The stranger always pauses, 

 and bears tribute to the taste of its inhabi- 

 tants, while he walks beneath the grateful 

 shade of its lofty rows of trees. Yet a 

 large part of the finest of these trees were 

 planted, and the whole of the spirit which 

 they have inspired, was awakened by one 

 person — Mr. Hillhouse. He lived long 

 enough to see fair and lofty aisles of ver- 

 dure, where, before, were only rows of brick 

 or wooden houses; and, we doubt not, he 

 enjoyed a purer satisfaction, than many 

 great conquerors who have died with the 

 honors of capturing kingdoms, and demo- 

 lishing a hundred cities. 



Let no person, therefore, delay planting 

 shade trees himself, or persuading hisneigh- 

 bors to do the same. Wherever a village 

 contains half a dozen persons zealous in 



