CHARACTERISTICS OF TREES. 



281 



Beauty of Form. — Next to the beauty that comes from vigor 

 of growth, or the glow of high health, is beauty of form. On this 

 matter tastes differ widely. To artists it seems a vulgar unculti- 

 vated taste to prefer a solid pumpkin-headed tree, to one of more 

 irregular outline ; but preference is so often expressed for trees of 

 such forms that it may be imprudent to speak disrespectfully of it. 

 Such trees certainly possess the first element of beauty of form, 

 viz., symmetry; but it is symmetry without variety. They may also 

 have the beauty of thrift and good color. An 

 apple tree from fifteen to twenty years old has 

 this quality of head as shown in Fig. 59. As it 

 grows old, however, its form changes materially, 

 so that its outline is quite irregular and spirited 

 — broader, nobler, and more domestic in expres- 

 sion — as will be seen by comparing Fig. 56 with 

 Fig- 59- Young sugar maples have similar forms slightly elon- 

 gated, as shown by Fig. 60, though with age they break into out- 

 lines less monotonous, as shown by Fig. 61, and 

 their shadows have more character. The same 

 may be said of the horse-chestnuts. The hicko- 

 ries and the white oak, assume more varied 

 outlines while young, without losing that balance 

 of parts which constitutes symmetry. Sugar 

 maples aie always symmetric in every stage of 

 their growth ; but their early symmetry is insipid, like that of the 

 human face when unexceptionable in features, but devoid of ex- 

 pression ; or rather like that of the doll-face, 

 which can hardly be said to have either features ^'°- ^'• 



or expression, but only beauty of color, the 

 semblance of health, and features faintly sug- 

 gested. The change in forms of many trees 

 which are excessively smooth in their early out- 

 lines is towards more and more variety of con- 

 tour and depth of shadow as they approach 

 maturity, and occasionally in old age they de- 

 velop into grandly picturesque trees ; as in the 

 case of the white oak and the chestnut among deciduous trees, and 

 the cedar of Lebanon among evergreens. 



Fig. 60. 



