352 Landscape Gardening 



house tops, giving an air of rural beauty that speaks louder 

 for the good habits of the inhabitants than the pleasant 

 sound of a hundred church bells. We remember North- 

 ampton, Springfield, New Haven, Stockbridge, and others, 

 whose long and pleasant avenues are refreshing and beauti- 

 ful to look upon. We do not forget that large and sylvan 

 park, with undulating surface, the Boston Common, or that 

 really admirable city arboretum of rare trees, Washington 

 Square of Philadelphia. Their groves are as beloved and 

 sacred in our eyes as those of the Deo-dar are to the devout 

 Brahmins. 



But these are, we are sorry to be obliged to say, only the 

 exceptions to the average condition of our country towns. 

 As an offset to them, how many towns, how many villages, 

 could we name, where rude and uncouth streets bask in the 

 summer heat, and revel in the noontide glare, with scarcely 

 a leaf to shelter or break the painful monotony! Towns 

 and villages, where there is no lack of trade, no apparent 

 want of means, where houses are yearly built, and children 

 weekly born, but where you might imagine, from their bar- 

 renness, that the soil had been cursed and had refused to 

 support the life of a single tree. 



What must be done in such cases? There must be at 

 least one right-feeling man in every such Sodom. Let him 

 set vigorously at work, and if he cannot induce his neighbors 

 to join him, he must not be disheartened - - let him plant 

 and cherish carefully a few trees, if only half a dozen. They 

 must be such as will grow vigorously, and like the native 

 elm, soon make themselves felt and seen wherever they may 

 be placed. In a very few years they will preach more elo- 

 quent orations than gray goose quills can write. Their lux- 

 uriant leafy arms, swaying and waving to and fro, will make 

 more convincing gestures than any member of congress or 

 stump speaker; and if there is any love of nature dormant 

 in the dusty hearts of the villagers, we prophesy that in a 

 very short time there will be such a general yearning after 

 green trees that the whole place will become a bower of 

 freshness and verdure. 



