DROOPING TREES. 



123 



I write you from London, where I have 

 promised to make a visit to Sir William 

 Hooker, who is the director of the Royal 

 Botanic Garden at Kew, and have accepted 



an invitation from the DuKE OP Northum- 

 berland to see the fine trees at Sion House. 

 Yours most cordially, A. J. D 



London, July 29, 1S30. 



DROOPING TREES. 



BY P. BARRY, ROCHESTER, N. Y. 



The peculiar gracefulness and elegance of 

 drooping trees, render them of great impor- 

 tance in the embellishment of landscapes. 

 Whether appropriately grouped, or scattered 

 singly on a lawn, they are equally capable of 

 producing the most charming effects. They 

 are also peculiarly appropriate for planting 

 rural cemeteries, for forming natural arbors, 

 and various other rustic decorations. The 

 rapid growth of taste throughout this coun- 

 try, in regard to ornamental planting, im- 

 provement of cemeteries, <S:c., induce me to 

 believe that trees of this character will soon 

 be nuich sought for, aiid that a brief notice 

 of a few desirable kinds might not at this 

 time be unseasonal)le- 



The Weeping Willow is the most fa- 

 miliar example of this class of trees, and is so 

 well known as to require no description. 

 Everywhere, unless in the extreme north, 

 where it is too tender, it is cultivated and 

 admired as the most graceful of all trees. Its 

 long slender flowing branches, falling in pro- 

 fusion perpendicularly from the summit of 

 the tree to the ground, make it the most 

 striking example of the graceful to be found 

 in the vegetable kingdom. All civilized na- 

 tions esteem it as one of the most fitting or- 

 naments for cemeteries ; and both sacred and 

 profane writers have thrown around it a mul- 

 titude of interesting and melancholy associa- 

 tions, that harmonize admirably with its or- 

 ganic character. 



I Jihall never forget the impression made 



upon my mind, on one occasion, by these 

 trees. In approaching the Jersey shore, in 

 the month of June, from the ocean, after a 

 long and tedious voyage across the Atlantic, 

 the first objects that attracted my attention 

 were some large and beautiful specimens of 

 the Weeping Willow, scattered along the 

 shore, apparently close to the water's edge. 

 It was the right season of the year ; they 

 were in the right place, and I in the best 

 possible mood to appreciate their beauty, for 

 I had seen not a green leaf for six long dreary 

 weeks. They appeared to me, at that mo- 

 ment, as surpassing in beauty the most ex- 

 travagant descriptions of the trees of Paradise. 

 Our appreciation of any object depends ma- 

 terially on the frame of mind we happen to be 

 in when it presents itself; sometimes a cir- 

 cumstance, in itself quite trivial, will reveal 

 to us, in some particular scene or object, a 

 thousand beauties that had before been en- 

 tirely hidden from us. 



TiiK Common Weeping Ash is another 

 drooping tree, pretty Avidely known and culti- 

 vated. Its branches are not slender and 

 thread-like as the willow, but rather sliff, 

 spreading at first horizontally, and gradually 

 drooping as they increase in length, until 

 they reach the ground. It is a unique ob- 

 ject, standing singly on a lawn ; makes an 

 admirable support for climbing roses or honey- 

 suckles, and is one of the best of trees f.r 

 forming arbors. In London, in 1848, I saw 

 a beautiful arbor, made of two trees of Weep- 



