296 A COMPARISON OF THE 



will be found quite impossible to produce with evergreens, in winter, 

 any of that glow of beauty which makes the heart throb with silent 

 love for verdant nature in summer. 



But in the warm days of April and May, when the evergreens 

 have resumed their true colors, and seem by the sudden change 

 from their wintry dullness to fairly smile a welcome to spring, their 

 superiority to deciduous trees is most apparent. Their beauty is 

 then ripe, and grounds that are stocked (not too densely) with 

 them especially the smaller species and varieties have a finish 

 that nothing else, at that season, can give. In June and July also, 

 their long plumes and tufts of leaves open and droop with a grace 

 of which there is no counterpart among deciduous trees or shrub- 

 bery, superior as the latter are in amplitude of foliage and splendor 

 of blossoms. Evergreens, especially the firs, with age are apt to 

 become gloomy and formal, while deciduous trees are generally 

 improved with age. 



The valuable acquisitions from abroad of new species and varie- 

 ties of evergreens adapted to the embellishment of suburban lots, 

 is very great ; and the number growing within the limits of our own 

 country, and still almost unknown except by a few horticultural 

 pioneers, is astonishing. The new varieties of old species, which, 

 by the propagating arts of the nurserymen are multiplied for the 

 public benefit, are also numerous ; and the homely adage still holds 

 good when we are searching for novelties among trees that are not 

 natives of our own country, that "we may go further and fare 

 worse." The grandest and most beautiful evergreen that grows in 

 our climate is the white pine ; which, to our shame be it said, is 

 little known or appreciated except for its value to cut down, and 

 saw into the lumber used in our houses. The native hemlock, 

 when young, is still the most picturesque in its outline, and deli- 

 cately graceful in foliage, of all hardy evergreens. The Norway 

 spruce, which is probably the most valuable tree of its type, is not 

 a native ; and is largely indebted to its foreign name for its great 

 popularity and universal cultivation ;' while our native black spruce, 

 very similar, and scarcely inferior to it, is little known. 



For elegant small pleasure-grounds, however, the newly intro- 

 duced dwarf varieties and the curious sports from old species, are 



