260 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[September, 



doomed nie to their drear and luislied conipaii- 

 ionship. The decree welcomed me to "ways of 

 pleasantness, and paths of peace." Besides tlie 

 sandy sameness and outcast fellowship of those 

 pitch f)ines, in our late " unpleasantness," I had 

 tramped "on many weary marches," all the way 

 down to flowery Florida. Ere long, " in the 

 spirit" or in the flesh, I hope, with that same 

 Horticultural judge and Daimio, to skirt along 

 those dreamy pine wood glades till, "away down 

 in Dixie," we look on sunny pictures framed 

 therewith, and draped with the silvery sheen of 

 moss. Oh ! the glory of those pitch-pine woods, 

 their stretching glades, their palm-tuft ham- 

 mocks, with orange groves atween. 



Awaiting, in pen or person, a glimpse of those 

 quiet " scenes to memory dear," I offer rescue 

 from a worse doom than mine, to one of those 

 foreign evergreens, around which hang the 

 glamour and loveliness of cost. Banishment 

 awaits the Norway Spruce, unless a way is shown 

 to mend its failings. In its youth, and some 

 what into the cone-bearing age, it wears thrift 

 and comeliness and shelter, in its quick, dense 

 growth, but no sooner has it towered up to the 

 stature, and graceful sweep and droop of limb, so 

 coveted by Downing, than our tearing wintry 

 ■wind takes it in hand. Year by year, a seared 

 and shrunken foliage gives it the shrivel of " the 

 lean and slippered pantaloon." It loses that 

 well-filled-out and robust li.ok, without which, 

 the evergreens, unlike deciduous trees, hang 

 gaunt and skeleton. This painful aspect of pre- 

 mature old age'(more than rivals even the bereft 

 and waning form of a venerable New England 

 Cedar. The Cedar, stark and partly stripped 

 of foliage, never forgets its attitude of the pic- 

 turesque, but an old worn Spruce has a distressed 

 look in its scant and shrunken toggery. The 

 feeling bids us almost say "why cumbereth it 

 the ground ? " 



Again, the young Norway Spruce has a thick 

 growth and bulky spread, whose untutored form 

 soon crowds and cramps a small homestead. 

 The very'vigor of the tree stretches too much 

 over the^Bward. It clutters the space due to 

 other plants. The little, comely cone-shapes, 

 which the nursery sends us, in such varied style, 

 quickly outstrip the purpose of their planting, 

 and task us to limit both their tower and spread. 

 Most people solve the puzzle somewhat as did 

 those who shortened the dog's tail, close behind 

 his ears. Some waste the growth of years and 

 cut clean out the cluttering torment, whether 



young or old. Others lop ofl" the lower limbs, 

 till the tree i)uts on, instead of grace, the ungain- 

 liness of a giant toadstool, or an upset top. I 

 confess rooting clean out suits me better than 

 such shaping of a Norway Spruce, or any other 

 evergreen, into a clownish, spooky scarecrow. 



Now, there is no need of putting this ungainli- 

 ncss on nature's forms. Instead of such brain- 

 less, tasteless makeshifts, there is a cheap and 

 easy way to fashion the Norway Spruce, at 

 almost any stage of its natural growth, into 

 graceful fitness for our need. It comes out of 

 that reaction and severed vitality of the tree, 

 following sharp and strong, the bold surgery of 

 knife and saw upon its limbs. The work needs 

 sense and the skill begot of brains or trial, but 

 it suits the Spruce at every age. It will not 

 rebel at any lopping which does not come pretty 

 close to what most people would like to see the 

 Spitz tails get. Until the tree has lost its robust 

 form, you may fashion it at will. Sheared into 

 a cone, either stout or slim, it will bristle with 

 verdure. Cut out on a young tree, alternate, 

 whole or parts of limbs, and a heavy burst of 

 foliage will load the rest into the graceful droop 

 of vigorous maturity. When one full-grown has 

 shifted its dense inner drai>ery and sheltering 

 verdure to its outer tassel tips, the same reactive 

 surgery will robe on its gaunt unseemliness the 

 stout garment which its youth wears against the 

 searching gird of the wintry wind. 



Now, I cannot better set out the way to do 

 such work, than my usual one of an example. 

 Some years since, in my ground, a Norway 

 Spruce towered up to forty feet or more of grace- 

 ful vigor; the earth, dry deep down, after along 

 drouth, had frozen away down beneath the sur- 

 face; then came along that tearing, scathing, 

 freezing wind, which many evergreens will never 

 forget. The dry breath of the wintry blast 

 seared and tore out with its frosty fingers, worse 

 than the scorch of Summer's sun or drouth. 

 Everywhere death and blight reached our ever, 

 greens; big gashes of verdure were gouged out 

 of kindly protecting hedges; here some single 

 gladdener of the lawn, there, out of a group, 

 some stout, full-clad favorite felt the death 

 shiver of this blast to its very marrow. 



That same thirsty, tearing wind struck my 

 big Norway Spruce. It did not show many 

 marks of the shock till Spring, then its full 

 drape and droop of frond and foliage took on a 

 shrunken feebleness. From a most robust and 

 stalwart specimen, the icy breeze had withered 



