TREES ABOUT TOWN 175 



tised. If trees that grow fast are required, there are 

 limes and horse-chestnuts ; the lime will run a race with 

 any tree. The lime, too, has a pale yellow blossom, to 

 which bees resort in numbers, making a pleasant hum, 

 which seems the natural accompaniment of summer 

 sunshine. Its leaves are put forth early. 



Horse-chestnuts, too, grow quickly and without any 

 attention, the bloom is familiar, and acknowledged to 

 be fine, and in autumn the large sprays of leaves take 

 orange and even scarlet tints. The plane is not to be 

 mentioned beside either of them. Other trees as well as 

 the plane would have flourished on the Thames Em- 

 bankment, in consequence of the current of fresh air 

 caused by the river. Imagine the Embankment with 

 double rows of oaks, elms, or beeches ; or, if not, even 

 with limes or horse-chestnuts ! To these certainly birds 

 would have resorted possibly rooks, which do not fear 

 cities. On such a site the experiment would have been 

 worth making. 



If in the semi-country seats fast-growing trees are 

 needed, there are, as I have observed, the lime and 

 horse-chestnut ; and if more variety be desired, add the 

 Spanish chestnut and the walnut. The Spanish chest- 

 nut is a very fine tree; the walnut, it is true, grows 

 slowly. If as many beeches as cedar deodaras and 

 laurels and planes were planted in these grounds, in due 

 course of time the tap of the woodpecker would be 

 heaid : a sound truly worth ten thousand laurels. At 

 Kew, far closer to town than many of the semi-country 

 seats are now, all our trees flourish in perfection. 



Hardy birches, too, will grow in thin soil. Just com- 

 pare the delicate drooping boughs of birch they could 

 not have been more delicate if sketched with a pencil 

 compare these with the gaunt planes ! 



