THE BEAUTIFUL IN A TREE. 



readers, in order to contrast it with another picture, tiot from nature — -but by the 

 hands of quite another master. 



This master is the man whose passion is to prune trees. To his mind, there is 

 nothing comparable to the satisfaction of trimming a tree. A tree in a state of nature 

 is a no more respectable object than an untamed savage. It is running to waste 

 with leaves and branches, and has none of the look of civilization about it. Only let 

 him use his saw for a short time, upon any young specimen just growing into adoles- 

 cence, and throwing out its delicate branches like a fine fall of drapery, to conceal its 

 naked trunk, and you shall see how he will improve its appearance. Yes, he will 

 trim up those branches till there is a tall, naked stem, higher than his head. That 

 shows that the tree has been taken care of — has been trimmed — ergo, trained and ed- 

 ucated into a look of respectability. This is his great point — the fundamental law of 

 sylvan beauty in his mind — a bare pole with a top of foliage at the end of it. If 

 he cannot do this, he may content himself with thinning out the branches to let in the 

 light, or clipping them at the ends to send the head upwards, or cutting out the leader 

 to make it spread laterally. But though the trees formed by these latter modes 

 of pruning, are well enough, they never reach that exalted standard, which has for its 

 type, a pole as bare as a ship's mast, with only a %ing studding-sail of green boughs 

 at the end of it.* 



We suppose this very common pleasure — for it must be a pleasure — which so many 

 persons fiiad in trimming up ornamental trees, is based on a feeling that trees, grow- 

 ing quite in the natural way, must be capable of some amelioration by art ; and as 

 pruning is usually acknowledged to be useful in developing certain points in a fruit 

 tree, a like good purpose will be reached by the use of the knife upon an ornamental 

 tree. But the comparison does not hold good — since the objects aimed at are essen- 

 tially diiFerent. Pruning — at least all useful pruning — as applied to fruit trees, is 

 applied for the purpose of adding to, diminishing, or otherwise regulating i\\e fniit ful- 

 ness of the tree ; and this, in many cases, is effected at the acknowledged diminution 

 of the growth, luxuriance and beauty of the tree — so far as spread of branches and 

 prodigality of foliage go. But even here, the pruner who prunes only for the sake of 

 using the knife, (like heartless young surgeons in hospitals,) not unfrequently goes 

 too far, injures the perfect maturity of the crop, and hastens the decline of the tree, 

 by depriving it of the fair proportions which nature has established between the leaf 

 and the fruit. 



But for the most part, we imagine that the practice we complain of, is a want of 

 perception of what is truly beautiful in an ornamental tree. It seems to us indispu- 

 table, that no one who has any perception of the beautiful in nature, could ever doubt 

 for a moment, that a fine single elm or oak, such as we may find in the valley of the 

 Connecticut or the Genesee, which has never been touched by the knife, is the most 

 perfect standard of sylvan grace, symmetry, dignity, and finely balanced proportions, 

 that it is possible to conceive. One would no more wish to touch it with saw or axe 



* Some of our readers may not be awure Ihat to cut off the .side brandies on a young tiunk, actually les; 

 growth in diameter of that trunk at once 



