DECIDUOUS TREES. 



439 



forms, or the number of differing varieties, we find them equally 

 adapted to beautify small grounds. No one family of trees furnishes 

 so many pretty specimen small trees for a lawn ; ranging in size 

 from the smallest shrubs to middle-sized trees some of them 

 almost evergreen. All the species require a dry, rich soil; in 

 which their annual growth for the first ten years will be from one 

 to two feet a year. 



FIG. 145. 



THE COCKSPUR THORN, C. crus-galli, Fig. 145, is the most 

 interesting of indigenous species. All its 

 varieties will assume a distinct tree-form, 

 though some of them are but shrubs in size. 

 The breadth of their heads is usually greater 

 than their height, and their forms vary from 

 globular to squarish-oblate. Their greatest 

 height and breadth is about thirty feet, but 

 usually not more than from twelve to twenty 

 feet This species is distinguished by thicker 

 and glossier leaves, more entire in outline than 

 the other sorts ; being more or less serrate, 

 but not lobed. The thorns are single, long, 

 and very sharp. At maturity the branches, 

 which are numerous, have a horizontal 

 direction, and the lights and shadows are 

 in thin, sharply defined, and generally level lines like those of the 

 beech tree. We have seen wild groves of these thorns, in western 

 openings, which by the aid of sheep had become exquisite bits of 

 park scenery. The sheep had fed on their sweet leaves as high 

 as they could reach from beneath, so that the under sides of the 

 trees were as level as the pasture below them. Above this level 

 line the trees spread in stratified lines of foliage entirely in har- 

 mony with the polished and artificial cut of their bases. Their 

 broad heads, so close to the lawn, and yet with a clearly defined 

 space above it, make shadows of great depth, which bring the 

 lights around them into bright relief. 



The most peculiar varieties are the C. c. splendens, noted for the 

 abundance and brilliant glossiness of its leaves ; the plum-leaved 



