THE 



VOL. VI.] 



MAY, 1883. 



[No. 5. 



ORNAMEN^J 



When the term ornamental trees is 

 used, it is intended thereby to designate 

 trees that have been planted, not for 

 the sake of their fruit, but for the sake 

 of shade and adornment. Every man 

 of taste and retinement wishes to make 

 his home surroundings neat and attrac- 

 tive, as well as to have that home 

 bountifully supplied with all the 

 comforts and luxuries which the soil 

 and climate can be made to produce. 

 For the latter purpose he plants a fruit 

 garden, and sets in it those trees and 

 vines that will yield the finest fruits ; 

 but when his object is to shelter the 

 house from the heat of the mid-summer 

 sun or the chill blasts of mid- winter 

 winds, or make an attractive picture to 

 delight the eye and gratify the sense of 

 the beautiful, he plants the trees and 

 shrubs that will best secure these 

 ends, irrespective of any consideration 

 of what fruit they will yield to the 

 table. 



Every one who takes an honest pride 

 in having a pretty home, or in living 

 in a pretty country, rejoices in seeing 

 our rural residences nicely ornamented 

 with groups of pretty trees and flower- 

 ing shrubs, and the country road sides 

 planted with trees, whose grateful shade 



'AL TKEES. 



is so refreshing, and whose sylvan beauty 

 adds so much to the value of every 

 homestead. And it is a most favorable 

 sign when the legislature of a country 

 so appreciates the value of road side 

 planting as to grant a pecuniary reward 

 to the people who will thus plant and 

 care for ornamental trees. • 



Fortunately we have not far to seek 

 for trees that are suitable for street 

 planting, home adornment, and winter 

 protection. Our native forests abound 

 with them, and if these are not enough, 

 our nurserymen have collected the most 

 hardy and beautiful of other climes, 

 which, when judiciously mingled with 

 our native trees, give a most pleasing 

 effect to the rural picture. And yet 

 with all this wealth of comfort and 

 beauty at command, with the certain 

 fact also before us that this sort of 

 planting is more than doubly i-ejmid in 

 the enhanced value of our lands, and 

 ten-fold repaid in shelter from the 

 noon-day heat of summer and the 

 frosty blasts of winter, notwithstanding 

 all this, the fact remains that orna- 

 mentiil tree-planting is sadly neglected 

 in this country, as a whole. However 

 we are improving in this respect, and 

 the enquiry for shade trees of beautiful 



