INDIANA HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 279 



knife as much as possible, and after setting lieep the professional tree 

 butcher away from your trees, who has ruined more trees than all the 

 causes laiown to man, both in health and beauty. There appears to be 

 a mania in the present age for the mutilation of shade trees. Go where 

 you will, in the village, town, city or counti-y and you will see the worlv of 

 the ti-ee butcher, who has not the least idea of the form of a beautiful 

 shade tree. Oh, but that he would take a few lessons from nature! The 

 most beautiful shade tree that you can find is one where the breeze has 

 wafted the seed of the sugar maple to some nook or corner of your farm 

 where it has grown up unaided by the hand of man, or unmutilated by 

 the butcher. Let us aid nature, but not retard her. 



Some complain of the slow gi'owth of the sugar maple, yet at the age 

 of ten years I found in my grounds that it made more shade and was 

 ihore l)eautiful than any tree I had. The quick gi-ower is soft wood and 

 short lived. When you have set tlie sugar and Norway maple, properly 

 pruned, it would be safer for the average man to throw away his prij^iing 

 knife, for the man who has had his leg amputated is ever afterward feel- 

 ing for his toes. 



The tree— the ornament most effective to all domestic buildings, grate- 

 ful to the eye, always an object of admiration and beauty, delightful in 

 the repose they offer in hoiu's of lassitude or weariness an indispensable 

 feature to a beautiful home, for he who can build a house either in the 

 valley or on the hill-top and leave it unadorned with the beauties of 

 nature will find himself inadequate to enjoy that Celestial Home eternal 

 in the heavens. 



"He who plants a tree 



Plants a hope. 



Rootlets up throiigh fibers blindly grope; 



I^eaves unfold unto horizon free. 



So man's life must climb 



From the clods of time 



Unto heavens sublime. 



Canst thou prophesy, thou little tree. 



What the glory of thy boughs shall be? 

 "He who plants a tree 



Doth plant love. 



Tents of coolness spreading out above 



Wayfarers he may not live to see. 



Gifts that gi-ow best, . 



Hands that bless are blest. 



Plant! Life does the rest. 



Heaven and earth help him who plants a tree. 



And his work its own reward shall be." 



