THE APPLE AS AN ORNAMENTAL TREE. 4 47 



THE APPLE AS AN ORNAMENTAL THREE. 



c. (;. (iuAv. 



Fashion long- a^o banished the apple tree from the lawn and park 

 and substituted various ornamental trees and shruljs. We obtain 

 our ideas of the apple tree from those that g-row in nejjlected or 

 badly kept orchards. The tree is left to run riot part of the time and 

 is then assailed with ax and saw, usually by the hired man, who 

 neither knows nor cares. Its symmetry is destroyed, and blood 

 poisoninjj enters through the stumps of its amputated limbs. Cattle 

 and horses browse off all the twig-s they can reach, so that between 

 men and farm-stock the tree is diseased, ungainly and does not live 

 out half its days. 



It is but rarelj' that an apple tree is given room, protected from 

 browsing animals, properly pruned and permitted to develop its 

 natural beauty. It will produce a leafy dome with limbs drooping 

 on all sides to the ground, its clusters of apples almost or quite 

 reaching the sod. As a flowering tree, it has no superior. Xo 

 blossoms are more dainty, delicately fragrant or abundant, and if 

 the fruit be well chosen for effect its dark green foliage will be 

 jeweled with scarlet or yellow; and the fruit retains, in full, the 

 fragrance of the bloom. It has no equal as a shade tree, sifting 

 only suflicient sunlight down into its closed pantheon to render it 

 cheerful. 



It so happened that an acre lot which I iinproved six years ago 

 contained about twenty apple trees. They were a hopeless looking 

 communitj' — mere bramble-tops of sprouts and dead limbs set 

 upon decayed boles. But I undertook to do what I could for them, 

 gave the sod a shallow plowing, emploj-ed fertilizers, pruned care- 

 fully, painting over the stumps of the limbs which were sawed ofT, 

 and have since used the shears upon the sprouts two or three times 

 each summer. The transformation is entire. They produce large 

 crops of apples, and there are more pears than can be used. But 

 it is not as an orchard that I would speak of it, but as a park. The 

 lot is regarded as the handsomest in the suburb, and I doubt if it 

 has its ecjual, in a plain sort of way, in any village. I notice strangers, 

 as they pass, pausing to admire it. There is almost no expense in 

 caring for it; I do it myself of evenings. If those apple trees were 

 removed, it would depreciate the selling value of the property very 

 seriously. Those old, dying apple trees have now made it too fine a 

 place for a printer-man like myself — but then I shall have to leave 

 it soon any way, and I want to break myself in for the heavenly 

 paradise before I go to it. I shall say to Father Adam, "This is all 

 very fine, especially the river, but then, dear Grandpa, you ought to 

 see my lot in Oak Park." 



It is a maxim of architecture and of all art, even that of a lady's 

 dress, that decoration for the sake of the decoration is not beauty. 

 Utility will bear ornamentation, but it must not be smothered in it. 

 A lawn or park should be beautified with shrubs and trees, but it 

 must not be made to look like a nursery. It is an ample out-door 

 room, breezier and better lighted and more attractive every way 



