HINTS ON LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



whatever is rare, and difficult to be obtained. A remarkable illustration of the truth 

 of this, may be found in the ornamental gardening of this country, which is noted for 

 the strongly marked features made in its artificial scenery by certain poorer sorts of 

 foreign trees, as well as the almost total neglect of finer native materials, that are in- 

 digenous to the soil. We will undertake to say, for example, that almost one-half 

 of all the deciduous trees that have been set in ornamental plantations of the last ten 

 years, have been composed, for the most part, of two very indifferent foreign trees — 

 the Ailantus and the Silver Poplar. When we say indifferent, we do not mean to 

 say that such trees as the Ailantus and the Silver Poplar, are not valuable trees in 

 their way— that is, that they are rapid growing, will thrive in all soils, and are trans- 

 planted with the greatest facility — suiting at once both the money-making grower and 

 the ignorant planter — but we do say, that when such trees as the American Elms, 

 Maples and Oaks, can be raised with so little trouble — trees as full of grace, dignity, 

 and beauty, as any that grow in any part of the world — trees, too, that go on gather- 

 ing new beauty with age, instead of throwing up suckers that utterly spoil lawns, or 

 that become, after the first few years, only a more intolerbable nuisance every day — it 

 is time to protest against the indiscriminate use of such sylvan materials — no matter 

 how much of " heavenly origin," or " silvery" foliage, they may have in their well 

 sounding names. 



It is by no means the fault of the nurserymen, that their nurseries abound in ailan- 

 tuses and poplars, while so many of our fine forest trees are hardly to be found. The nur- 

 serymen are bound to pursue their business so as to make it profitable, and if people 

 ignore oaks and ashes, and adore poplars and ailantuses, nurserymen cannot be ex- 

 pected to starve because the planting public generally are destitute of taste. 



What the planting public need is to have their attention called to the study of na- 

 ture — to be made to understand that it is in our beautiful woodland slopes, with their 

 undulating outlines, our broad river meadows studded with single trees and groups al- 

 lowed to grow and expand quite in a state of free and graceful developnent, our 

 steep hills, sprinkled with picturesque pines and firs, and our deep valleys, dark 

 with hemlocks and cedars, that the real lessons in the beautiful and picturesque are to 

 be taken, which will lead us to the appreciation of the finest elements of beauty in 

 the embellishment of our country places — instead of this miserable rage for " trees 

 of heaven" and other fashionable tastes of the like nature. There are, for example, 

 to be found along side of almost every sequestered lawn by the road-side in the north- 

 ern states, three trees that are strikingly remarkable for beauty of foliage, growth or 

 or flower, viz : the Tulip tree, the Sassafras, and the Pepperidge. The first is, for 

 stately elegance, almost unrivalled among forest trees : the second, when planted in 

 cultivated soil and allowed a fair chance, is more beautiful in its diversified laurel-like 

 fohage than almost any foreign tree in our pleasure grounds : and the last is not sur- 

 passed by the orange or the bay in its glossy leaves, deep green as an emerald in sum- 

 mer, and rich red as a ruby in autumn— and all of them freer from the attacks of in 

 sects than either larches, lindens, or elms, or a dozen other favorite foreign trees, — be 

 sides being unaffected by the summer sun where Horse-chestnuts are burned brown, 



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