148 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[Mat, 



fabrication of silkfs should have a woman as its 

 inventor. 



Si-ling-Chi, in creating this industry, which 

 was to be so immensely developed, enriched her 

 country. Her countrymen seem to have under- 

 stood the extent of the benefit, and to have been 

 not ungrateful. They placed her among their 

 deities, under the name of Sein-Thsan, two words 

 that, according to M. Stanislas Julien, signify the 

 first who raised the silk-worm. And still, in our 

 time, the empresses of China, with their maids- 

 of-honor, on an appointed day, oflfer solemn sac- 

 rifices to Sein-Thsan. They lay aside their 

 brilliant dress, renounce their sewing, their em- 

 broidery, and their habitual work, and devote 

 themselves to raising the silk-worm. In their 

 sphere they imitate the Emperor of China, who 

 on his part, descends once a year from his throne 

 to trace a furrow with the plough. — A. De Qua- 

 TREFAGES, in Popular Science Monthly for October. 



An Argument for Tree- Planting. — Mr. 

 Northrop, Secretary for the Connecticut State 

 Board of Education, makes the following patri- 

 otic argument for tree-planting : 



Tree-planting is fitted to give a lesson of fore- 

 thought to the juvenile mind. Living solely in 

 the present and for the present, too many youth 

 will sow, only where they can shortly reap. A 

 meager crop, soon in hand, outweighs a golden 

 harvest long in maturing. As short-sightedness 

 is the danger of youth, they should learn that 

 forecasting the future is the condition of wisdom. 

 Arboriculture is a discipline in foresight, for it is 

 always planting for the future and often for the 

 distant future. To do something in this centen- 

 nial year which may live on in 1976 will be a 

 healthful aspiration to any youth. Washington 

 Irving well says of tree-planting, "There is a 

 grandeur of thought connected with this heroic 

 line of husbandry. It is worthy of liberal and free- 

 born and aspiring men. He who plants an oak 

 looks forward to future ages and plants for pos- 

 terity, exulting in the idea that the acorn which 

 he has buried in the earth shall grow up into a 

 lofty pile and shall keep on flourishing and in- 

 creasing and benefiting mankind long after he 

 has ceased to trend his paternal fields." It would 

 be a grand achievement for this centennial year, 

 if a genuine interest in arboriculture can be 

 awakened in all our towns. To this end our pu- 

 pils should observe all the common trees so as 

 readily to recognize them by any one of the six 

 most distinctive marks. If fit lessons were early 



given on the varieties and value, the beauty and 

 grandeur of our majestic trees, our youth could 

 hardly fail to admire and enjoy them, and then 

 to plant and protect them. The planting of one 

 hundred thousand trees by the wayside (and that 

 would be forty thousand less than one for each 

 pupil and teacher) would ultimately make the 

 roads and streets of Connecticut by far the most 

 beautiful in America. If private taste, public 

 spirit, town pride and the sentiment of patriot- 

 ism to our State could be duly enlisted in con- 

 nection with the certainty of pecuniary profit 

 and the manifold personal advantage of every 

 citizen, our streets would become bowers of 

 beauty and verdure. Nothing can add so great a 

 charm to our country roads or village streets, as 

 long and magnificent avenues of stately elms and 

 maples, such as may already be seen in many 

 beautiful towns in Connecticut. But there re- 

 main some desolate, neglected, repulsive, leafless 

 villages, where taste and trees, and shrubbery, 

 hedges, creeping vines and a park or green, 

 would make the wilderness blossom as the rose. 

 Among the memories of my boyhood, while 

 under thirteen years of age, no day has recurred 

 with more frequency and satisfaction than that 

 devoted to tree-planting. The maples then set 

 out before the homestead, in Litchfield County, 

 are now beautiful and stately trees. They have 

 paid me a thousandfold for the work they cost, 

 and added new attractions to the cherished spot 

 to Avhich I count it a privilege to make an an- 

 nual visit. This personal incident is given to 

 suggest how easily our youth may now provide 

 for a like grateful experience. 



A single fact out of many which might be 

 given will be enough to illustrate the economic 

 bearings of tree-planting. New Haven owes its 

 beauty and growth largely to the taste, liberality 

 and foresight of James Hillhouse. The Public 

 Green Association, which he organized in 1799, 

 raised and expended a little over $1,500 for plant- 

 ing elms and grading the Green. One of the don- 

 ors gave five gallons of rum, then apparently as 

 good as legal-tender. Next to the location of 

 Yale College, nothing hjis contributed so much 

 to the growth and enrichment of New Haven as 

 its elms. It is celebrated in this and other lands 

 as the City of Elms. Its magnificent avenues of 

 stately trees, surpassing even the famous Unter 

 den Linden of Berlin, have enhanced its reputa- 

 tion for taste, beauty and elegance, and thus at- 

 tracted many wealthy and desirable residents, 

 and greatly increased the taxable value of all the 



