Shade-Trees in Cities 341 



sylvan destruction, have probably made a clean sweep of 

 the first born of celestials, in more towns than one south of 

 Mason and Dixon's line this season. 



Although we think there is picturesqueness in the free 

 and luxuriant foliage of the ailanthus, we shall see its down- 

 fall without a word to save it. We look upon it as an usurper 

 in rather bad odor at home, which has come over to this land 

 of liberty, under the garb of utility,* to make foul the air 

 with its pestilent breath and devour the soil with its inter- 

 meddling roots - - a tree that has the fair outside and the 

 treacherous heart of the Asiatics, and that has played us so 

 many tricks that we find we have caught a Tartar which it 

 requires something more than a Chinese wall to confine 

 within its limits. 



Down with the ailanthus! therefore, we cry with the popu- 

 lace. But we have reasons besides theirs, and now that the 

 favorite has fallen out of favor with the sovereigns we may 

 take the opportunity to preach a funeral sermon over its 

 remains that shall not, like so many funeral sermons, be a 

 bath of oblivion-waters to wash out all memory of its vices. 

 For if the Tartar is not laid violent hands upon and kept 

 under close watch even after the spirit has gone out of the 

 old trunk and the coroner is satisfied that he has come to a 

 violent end - - lo, we shall have him upon us tenfold in the 

 shape of suckers innumerable - - little Tartars that will beget 

 a new dynasty and overrun our grounds and gardens again 

 without mercy. 



The vices of the ailanthus - - the incurable vices of the 

 by-gone favorite - - then, are twofold. In the first place, it 

 smells horribly, both in leaf and flower, and instead of sweet- 

 ening and purifying the air, fills it with a heavy, sickening 

 odor; | in the second place, it suckers abominably, and 



The ailanthus, though originally from China, was first introduced 

 into this country from Europe, as the "Tanner's sumac" but the mis- 

 take was soon discovered, and its rapid growth made it a favorite with 

 planters. -- A. J. D. 



f Two acquaintances of ours, in a house in the upper part of the city 

 of New York, are regularly driven out by the ailanthus malaria every 

 season. A. J. D. 



