AMERICAN VINEYARDS. 



397 



oaks — rich in foliage and grand in every 

 part of their trunks and branches.* 



Though we think our native weeping 

 Elm, our Sugar Maple, and two or three of 

 our Oaks, the finest of street trees for coun- 

 try villages, yet there are a great many 

 others which may be adopted, when the soil 

 is their own, with the happiest effect. What 

 could well be more beautiful, for example, 

 for a village with a deep mellow soil, than 

 a long avenue of that tall and most elegant 

 tree the Tulip-tree or Whitewood ? For a 

 village in a mountainous district, like New- 

 Lebanon, in this State, we would perhaps 

 choose the White Pine, which would pro- 

 duce a grand and striking effect. In Ohio, 

 the Cucumber-tree would make one of the 

 noblest and most admirable avenues, and at 

 the south what could be conceived more 

 captivating than a village whose streets 

 were lined with rows of the Magnolia gran- 

 diflora? We know how little common minds 

 appreciate these natural treasures; how much 

 the less because they are common in the 

 woods about them. Still, such are the trees 

 which should be planted ; for fine forest 

 trees are fast disappearing, and planted 

 trees, grown in a soil fully congenial to them, 

 will, as we have already said, assume a 

 character of beauty and grandeur that will 

 arrest the attention and elicit the admira- 

 tion of every traveller. 



The variety of trees for cities — densely 

 crowded cities — is but small ; and this, 

 chiefly, because the warm brick walls are 

 such hiding places and nurseries for insects, 

 that many fine trees— fine for the country 

 and for rural towns — become absolute 

 pests in the cities. Thus, in Philadelphia, 

 we have seen, with regret, whole rows of the 

 European Linden cut down within the last 

 ten years, because this tree, in cities, is so 

 infested with odious worms that it often be- 

 comes unendurable. On this account that 

 foreign tree, the Ailanthus, the strong scent- 

 ed foliage of which no insect will attack, is 

 every day becoming a greater metropolitan 

 favorite. The Maples are among the thrifti- 

 est and most acceptable trees for large cities, 

 and no one of them is more vigorous, clean- 

 er, hardier, or more graceful than the Silver 

 Maple, {Acer eriocarpum.) 



We must defer any further remarks for 

 the present ; but we must add, in conclu- 

 sion, that the planting season is at hand. 

 Let every man, whose soul is not a desert, 

 plant trees ; and that not alone for himself 

 — within the bounds of his own demesne, 

 but in the streets, and along the rural high- 

 ways of his neighborhood. Thus he will 

 not only lend grace and beauty to the 

 neighborhood and county in which he 

 lives, but earn, honestly, and well, the 

 thanks of his fellow men. 



AMERICAN VINEYARDS. 



BY WILLIAM R. PRINCE, FLUSHING, L. I. 



It seems a matter of amazement that so 

 much apathy should exist in regard to the 

 Vine culture, when other objects of both 



* The Oak is easily transplanted from the nurseries — though 

 not from the woods, unless in the latter case, it has been 

 prepared a year beforehand, by shortening the roots and 

 branches. 



horticultural and agricultural interest are 

 exciting such marked attention, and when 

 we have thousands of acres of idle lands 

 that might be most lucratively devoted to the 

 production of an article for which we are 

 paying an annual tribute of millions to for- 



