STUDY OF PARK TREES. 



STUDY OF PARK TREES. 



[ SEE FRONTISPIECE. ] 



There is as much difference between a wild forest tree and a park tree, as between a 

 wild horse and the finest trained Arabian courser. Full, as our forests are, of native trees 

 in the richest variety to be found on the globe, but few Americans are familiar with the 

 beauty of finely developed trees. Even in our ornamental grounds, it is too much the 

 custom to plant trees in masses, belts, and thickets — by wliich the same effects are pro- 

 duced as we constantly see in ordinary woods — that is, there is picturesque intricacy, 

 depth of shadow, and seclusion, growing out of masses of verdure — but no beauty of de- 

 velopment in each individual tree — and none of that fine perfection of character which 

 is seen when a noble forest tree stands alone in soil well suited to it, and has " nothing else 

 to do but grow" into the finest possible shape that nature meant it to take. 



One sees such trees, to be sure, occasionally, all over the country. Witness the elms 

 of the Connecticut valley, the maples of the Housatonic, the tulip trees of Pennsylvania, 

 and the oaks of Western New-York. But there are two places Avhere this kind of park- 

 like development of trees, is most perfect and complete. 



The first is, in the English Parks — those broad grassy surfaces, studded with scattering 

 trees and groups of trees — hundred of years old — many of them allowed to grow into the 

 most beautiful forms that nature has impressed into their organization, and spread out 

 into the richest drooping umbrageous heads of foliage that so favorable a climate for their 

 growth can beget. 



The other position is in the natural parks of America — the oak openings of the West — 

 where, over a gently rolling surface of thousands of acres, you see grouped, precisely as in 

 an English Park, but sometimes on a still grander scale, the noblest trees — now singly, 

 and now three or four, or half a dozen together, — trees, each one of which would have 

 been chosen by Claude as a study for the foreground of his wonderful landscapes — which 

 are the master-pieces of sly van beauty. Nearer home, such a growth may be seen in the 

 meadow park at Geneseo, — the Wadsworth estate, previously described by us — where 

 are as fine oaks, by hundreds, as are to be found in any park in England. 



It is remarkable, that these grand parks of America, and the best specimens of English 

 taste in Landscape Gardening, should be such close counterparts of one another. And 

 though a man may have room to plant only half a dozen trees, yet he should study such 

 examples as a sculptor would study the Apollo or the Venus — to make himself familiar 

 with that high-water level of the beautiful in form, where both art and nature meet and 

 become identical. 



lU n i nn. 



The American Pomologist: containg finely colored drawings, accompanied by letter 

 press descriptions of Fruits of American origin. Edited by Dr. W. D. Brinckle. 

 Published by A. Hoffy, Philadelphia. (^-2 a number, quarterly — $8 a vol.) 

 Those who remember Mr. Hoffy's colored serial of Fruits, of which only a few num- 

 were issued in Philadelphia, some five or six years ago, will recognize the prototype 

 new work which has just issued from his press in Philadelphia. It is a quarto 



