60 FOLIAGE. 



mired only because it is rare. I cannot believe, if the 

 two kinds were equally common, that the silver leaf 

 would be preferred to the green ; for this is the color that 

 affords the most enduring satisfaction. The white poplar 

 is the most remarkable example of silver foliage. The 

 river maple has less of this quality, though it seems to be 

 one of the points for which it is admired. Nature dis- 

 plays but very little variegated foliage among her wild 

 productions, except in the spring and autumn. It is 

 evidently an abnormal habit ; hence we find this variega- 

 tion chiefly in those plants which have been modified by 

 the cultivator's art, and it seldom constitutes a specific 

 mark of distinction. 



In our studies of foliage we must not overlook the 

 grasses, which are composed almost entirely of leaves. 

 They contribute as much to the beauty of landscape as 

 the verdure of trees, and collectively more than flow- 

 ers. "We need only a passing thought to convince us 

 how tame and lifeless the landscape would be, though 

 every hill were crowned with flowers, and every tree 

 blossomed with gay colors, if there were no grasses or 

 some kind of herbage to take their place. Hence the su- 

 perior beauty of Northern landscape compared with the 

 general scenery of tropical regions. There are more indi- 

 vidual objects in a Southern land which are curious and 

 beautiful, but its want of green fields soon renders its 

 scenery wearisome. 



There is also an interest attached to hills and meadows 

 covered with green herbage, and pastured by flocks and 

 herds, that comes from our sympathies and imagination, 

 and causes the verdure of grass, when outspread upon their 

 surface, to possess a moral or relative beauty displayed 

 by few other natural objects. There is nothing else in 

 landscape to be compared with it, and nearly all out- 

 door scenes would be cold and insipid without it. It 



