it, but who deserves not his success. We mean the Abclc or Silver poplar. There is a 

 pleasant flutter in his silver lined leaves — but when the timber is a foot thick, you 

 shall find the air unpleasantly filled every spring, with the fine white down which flies 

 from the blossom, while the suckers which are thrown up from the roots of old Abeles 

 are a pest to all grounds and gardens, even worse than those of the Ailanthus. Down 

 with the Abeles ! 



Oh, that our tree planters, and they are an army of hundreds of thousands in this 

 country — ever increasing with the growth of good taste — oh ! that they knew and 

 could understand the surpassing beauty of our native shade trees. More than forty 

 species of Oak are there in North America, (Great Britain has only two species — 

 France only five,) and we are richer in Maples, Elms, and Ashes, than any country in 

 the old world. Tulip trees and Magnolias from America, are the exotic glories of the 

 princely grounds of Europe. Bat, (saving always the praiseworthy partiality in New- 

 England, for our Elms and Maples,) who plants an American tree — in America? And 

 who, on the contrary, that has planted shade trees at all in the United States, for the 

 last fifteen years, has not planted either Ailanthuses or Abele Poplars? We should 

 like to see that discreet, sagacious individual, who has escaped the national extasy for 

 foreign suckers. If he can be found, he is more deserving a gold medal from our 

 horticultural societies, than the grower of the most mammoth pumpkin, or elephan- 

 tine beet that will garnish the cornucopia of Pomona for 1852. 



In this confession of our sins of commission in planting filthy suckers, and omission 

 in not planting clean natives — we must lay part of the burden at the door of the nur- 

 serymen. (It has been found a convenient practice — this shifting the responsibility — 

 ever since the first trouble about trees in the garden of Eden.) 



"Well I then, if the nurserymen ivill raise Ailanthus and Abeles by the thousands, 

 (reply the planting community,) and telling us nothing about pestilential odors and 

 suckers, tell us a great deal about ' rapid growth, immediate effect — beauty of foliage 

 — rare foreign trees,' and the like, it is not surprising that we plant what turn out, 

 after twenty years trial, to be nuisances instead of embellishments. It is the busi- 

 ness of the nurseryman to supply planters with the best trees. If they supply us 

 with the worst, who sins the most, the buyer or the seller of such stuff? " 



Softly, good friends. It is the hisiness of nurserymen to make a profit by raising 

 trees. If you will pay just as much for a poor tree, that can be raised in two years 

 from a sucker, as a valuable tree that requires four or five years, do you wonder that 

 the nurserymen will raise and sell you Ailanthuses instead of Oaks. It is the business 

 (duty, at least) of the planter, to know what he is about to plant, and though there are 

 many honest traders, it is a good maxim that the Turks have, " ask no one in the bazaar 

 to praise his own goods." To the eyes of the nurserymen a crop of Ailanthuses and 

 Abeles is " apasture in the valley of sweet waters." Butgo to an old homestead, where 

 they have become naturalized, and you will find that there is a bitter aftertaste about the 

 experience of the unfortunate possessor of these sylvan treasures of a far off country 



may as well add for llie benefit of ilie novice, the advice to slum all trees lliat are universally propagated by 

 It is a worse iiilierimuce lor a tree tiiaii dninkeiiiiess for aoliild, and inoredilTicuUto eradicate. Even Allan 

 uses and Poplars /row seed liave lolerablyrespectable habits as regards radical things. 



