18 ORNAMENTAL TREES. 



with the Italian architecture of our liouses — the best of all styles for country 

 buihlinjrs. Economical, when dry, it is a good summer fuel. If you doubt it, 

 ask the bakers, or the charcoal men. No wood does better. But I speak of this 

 incidentally, valuing it only as an ornament. Yet with all these good qualities, 

 one may ride a hundred miles through a country boasting One grounds, and elabor- 

 ate furnishings, without seeing a single specimen. 



Let our tastes become better cultivated, and overcome the narrow prejudice 

 that has banished this once graceful and cherished tree from our grounds; and 

 throw it in, here and there, and all about in miscellaneous companionship with 

 others, and then acknowledge that it has grace and beauty, long life, and endur- 

 ing foliage. It will throw out its rich, brown clusters of flower buds, when the 

 grt)und is still filled with frost, and its pea-green leaves open their downy coverts 

 in the earliest spring; it will whisper its grateful rustling music throughout the heats 

 of summer, and cheer you with its soft, yellow garniture till the very frosts of 

 winter cut them down. Ho ! then ; let us give renewed life to the long-neglected 

 Lombardy poplar. 



[With regard to this tree, we can just remember that there was an outcry 

 against it, because it was believed to be infested with the "poplar worm," sup- 

 posed to be poisonous, we believe unjustly so. Fashion has undoubtedly done 

 the deed, and fashion, in due time, will restore it to its true uses, as it has done 

 the hollyhock, tabooed till Wordsworth made it again a favorite. It is a rule in 

 the composition of landscape, that all horizontal lines should be balanced and 

 supported by perpendicular ones ; hence the Lombardy poplar becomes of great 

 importance in scenery when contrasted with round-headed trees. It is admitted 

 by all writers on the material sublime, from Burke to Dugald Stewart, that 

 gradually tapering objects of great height create the emotion of sublimity. These 

 trees may be advantageously planted wherever there is a continuance of horizontal 

 lines, but they should be so arranged as to form a part of those lines, and to seem 

 to grow out of them, rather than to break or oppose them in too abrupt a manner. 

 In the case of a stable or other agricultural building, where the principal mass 

 extends in length, rather than in height, it would be wrong to jtlant Lombardy 

 poplars, or other tall fastigiate trees immediately before the building, but they 

 will have a good effect when placed at the sides, or behind it. 



Such trees (fastigiate) should appear in all i)lantations and belts that are made 

 with a view to picturesque efifect, but it is a most dangerous tree to be employed 

 by a planter who has not considerable knowledge and good taste in the composition 

 of landscape. It would make an excellent shelter on the prairies ; for a screen 

 from the winds it should be planted close, and the top cut off annually. Its 

 rapidity of growth renders it suitable to half-screen a too staring open view where 

 it is desired to look under the branches. Along the sides of lakes lengthened and 

 pleasing reflections are produced, which, breaking the horizontal gleams of light, 

 not only produce variety and richness, but, by increasing the length of the perpen- 

 dicular lines formed by the poplars, confer a degree of sublimity on the picture.] 



