472 



VARIETY IN ORNAMENTAL PLANTATIONS. 



answer. The advantages of this plan are, 

 first, a great saving of labor ; and next, the 

 oreater expedition vi^ith which the work is 

 done. The latter is an important consi- 

 deration to most of us on the Hudson ; as 

 the spring opens so late, there is much to 

 be accomplished in a short season. The 

 orardener will also be enabled to turn his 

 attention earlier, and more fully, to the 



lawn, walks, shrubbery, &c., as well as the 

 cultivation of the finer fruits. 



I introduced the practice with the plough 

 several years since, and the result has been 

 highly satisfactory. [Excellent advice. Ed.] 



Respectfully yours, Geo. Kidd, 



Gardener, with Robert Donaldson, Esq., 

 Blithewood, Dutchess county, N. Y. 



Red-Hook, N. Y. March 8, 1849. 



VARIETY IN ORNAMENTAL PLANTATIONS. 



BY WILLIAM BACON, RICHMOND, MASS. 



Our American forests are justly the admi- 

 ration of all travellers. Rich, in tlie al- 

 most interminable variety of their products ; 

 majestic, in the huge, massive columns 

 they present, rising in grand sublimity to 

 support their own tall canopies ; their leaves, 

 varied in form, and beautiful in symmetry; 

 their flowers, of almost endless name and 

 hue ; it is no wonder that they attract the 

 notice, and call forth the raptures of all 

 admirers of what is rich in perfection and 

 beautiful in loveliness. 



But it is amid the glowing scenes of au- 

 tumn, when the winds are pealing their 

 earliest dirge over the decay of summer; 

 when every leaf is arraying itself in the 

 drapery of death, dyed in its own heart's 

 blood ; when the hillside and the grove 

 present every hue that the imagination can 

 inspire, or the pencil portray, that our forest 

 retinue puts on its most fanciful garb, and 

 attracts, with most admiring wonder, the 

 fond gaze of all beholders. 



\i variety makes the forest so beautiful, 

 why does it not give equal interest to our 

 parks and avenues ? Yet, in these reposi- 

 tories of improvement, how seldom do we 

 see its nature studied, or its interest ex- 

 cited! "All elms," was the exclamation 



of an astonished visitor on Boston Common:, 

 the first time its graceful avenues burst 

 upon his vision. And in looking over the 

 studied lines or fine groups of trees, planted 

 by the hand of man in different sections of 

 the country, we find the same tasteless 

 similarity of kind to exist almost every- 

 where. In most sections, the maple has 

 been the subject of the mania ; and whether 

 soil or other circumstances would warrant 

 its success or not, the maple has been the 

 prominent favorite of all tree planters. 



Why this unanimity and uniformity of 

 taste we never could determine ; but are 

 rather inclined to impute it to Yankee go-a- 

 head-ativeness, than any other cause. Ma- 

 ny, no doubt, will say its a beautiful tree ; 

 and what tree of all our lengthened voca- 

 bulary is not, when placed in circumstances 

 favorable to a full development ? Is not 

 the oak as beautiful, with its long, brawny 

 arms, or the elm, with its thousand tiny 

 twigs, growing from the ground to the 

 parting of the branches, and making it a 

 pillar of verdure, from the root to the apex? 

 What is more beautiful than the beech, 

 adapting itself to every form, the most ro- 

 mantic fancy can invent ? We have one 

 in our mind, at the present time, which has 



