STATE HORTICULTUBAL SOCIETY. 229 



beauty, how often do we tiud a few scraggy pines or cedars, with limbs starting out 

 nearly level with the ground and tops running up to a peak; mingled, perhaps^ 

 with half a dozen slender poplars or spindling ashes, none of them casting enough 

 shadow to shelter a cat or dog. On the other hand, it is by no means uncommon to 

 rind wide spreading and thickly foliaged maples, box elders and lindens occupying 

 limited areas, and completely shutting out from the ground beneath the light and 

 warmth of the sun. Look, too, along the streets of many of our cities and villages, 

 at the incongruous varieties of shade trees which are frequently displayed; many 

 of them possessed of beauty in themselves, but robbed of their charms by the asso- 

 ciations in which they are found. 



Do not these sights evince a want of knowledge, and prove that instruction is 

 needed, as to what is truly tasteful in the selection of trees ? I think so. But the 

 greatest need, perhaps, for pesthetic training in horticulture is shown in many of 

 our public parks. 1 have now in mind a handsome little park, that might be a per- 

 fect gem of beauty, but for the uncultivated taste displayed in the selection and 

 training of the trees. These are all tall and limbless to the height of at least four- 

 teen feet, with tufts of tops scarcely exceeding four feet in diameter and so sparse- 

 ly limbed that the sunbeams shine so freely through them that they serve little 

 more purpose of shade than flagstalls would. True they may, in time, put forth 

 additional limbs, but under the most propitious circumstances they can never grow 

 to be good-looking nor to serve fully the purpose for which they are designed. In 

 another city, 1 know of a much more extensive park where the trees are all low and 

 bushy, and all of the same kind. In this instance, too, they are planted in straight 

 rows as though beauty consisted in exactness of parallelograms. I have frequently 

 been led to suspect, when observing shade trees on the sides of streets, that the rule 

 observed by those who planted them was: to put the least umbrageous trees along 

 the widest streets where they would do the least good, and the widest branched in 

 the narrowest thoroughfares where they would be the greatest possible nuisances. 



Somebody has said that true beauty consists in contrasts, but I beg leave to differ. 

 It will not do to announce that, even as a general rule. Nor is it true that same- 

 ness is beauty. Congruity, fitness, adaptation, are necessary to awaken the delight 

 of those perceptions which recognize beauty. It is these relations to each other 

 that constitute harmony between a series of objects, or between the several parts 

 of the same object. Without harmony there can be no beauty, either physical or 

 moral. This is true of .music, painting, architecture, and, indeed, of every branch 

 of art, and it must be equally true of horticulture. A degree of contrast is, of 

 course, necessary to harmony: but violent and inharmonious contrasts are always 

 more or less offensive to the perceptive faculties. Suitableness is a far more essen- 

 tial quality in a'sthetic culture than contrast ; for that which is not suitable, not 

 adapted to the situation it occupies, or the use which it designs to serve, must be 

 a positive deformity, although beautiful under other circumstances. 



Large trees in confined localities dwarf the grounds they occupy into insignifi- 

 cance, and tall spindling trees palpably develop their own poverty of foliage in 

 roomy situations. Such arrangements of objects are obviously inconsistent in their 

 relations, and disfigure rather than adorn the scene. Let there be variety and con- 

 trast, but keep these attributes within the bounds of congruity. A little reflection 

 ought to convince us that careful and -mature study is required to enable us to se- 



