ORNAMENTAL TREES. 



cockneyfied character of the two first of these, while I yield to no one else in my 

 real admiration of the other. But I never could divine the reason why the cheer- 

 ful native of sunny Lombardy should be so remorselessly cut away at the bidding of 

 a capricious will, when it really has so much of intrinsic beauty in itself, and 

 appropriately applied, gives such picturesque variety to groups of the round- 

 headed trees in its immediate vicinity. Yet it has been swept utterly out of 

 existence in many localities, and scarce one of our professional landscape-gardeners, 

 or writers, much more our tree-raisers, have the moral courage, or true taste to 

 recommend its propagation, or to cultivate it in their grounds. 



It is now the twelfth day of ISTovember. The soft haze of our Indian summer 

 has been floating around us for a week. One after another the yellow, red, and 

 russet leaves from the various trees in the lawn and adjacent forests, have fallen 

 silently to the ground, and left their limbs bare as in mid-winter ; while from the 

 window at which I sit, looking out upon the clear, sweeping Niagara, and on to 

 the opposite Canada shore, keeping guard over the cheerful, white-painted 

 dwellings behind them, mixed in with the golden willow, stand hundraAs of 

 beautiful Lombardy poplars for miles along, still glorying in th« soft yellow 

 tints of their full leafy tops, and cheering up with life and beauty a most delightful 

 landscape. How gracefully, too, they throw their long shadows into the clear 

 water with the sunshine. Yet fashion — capricious, senseless, fussy fashion, calls 

 them vulgar. Not so do I. Spite of fashion, with its caprice and nonsense, the 

 Lombardy poplar is still a graceful, beautiful tree. And I'll tell you why. Not 

 in stiff, formal rows, like a line of grenadiers with shouldered arms, guarding an 

 outpost ; or in naked, stake-like regularity lining an avenue ; but shooting up their 

 taper heads here and there among other trees, like the tall spires of churches 

 among wide blocks of houses, giving variety, point, and character to a finished 

 picture. 



The Lombardy poplar, like the cottonwood, is a universal tree. It grows in 

 all our climates alike, from the lagoons of the Gulf of Mexico to the northern 

 extremities of the upper lakes. It grows from the slip. Cut off a branch large 

 as your arm, and plant it two feet in any kind of a soil, no matter how sterile, 

 short of a dead swamp, and it will grow with great rapidity and vigor. In ten 

 years, with no care or pruning, it becomes a stately tree forty feet high. What 

 tree will do the like ? It is a clean tree. Its roots throw up no suckers. Worms 

 and vermin seldom molest it — less even than many of those esteemed most orna- 

 mental. It is a conspicuous landmark, in elevated spots, indicating, miles away, 

 the spot you wish to reach. You are told that when old, its limbs decay, and it 

 becomes ragged, and repulsive to the sight. Then cut the top down to half a 

 dozen prongs, a dozen feet from the ground. No other tree but a willow will 

 stand that. But the poplar heeds it not. With a vitality unknown to the greatest 

 favorites, it strikes out anew its numerous upright shoots, and in two years its 

 taper limbs are high in the air, and before you are aware of it, it towers among 

 its fellows as if the saw or the axe had never touched a branch. It comports fitly 



-J^^^ 



