CHAPTER XVL 



A SELECT LIST OF TREES. 



Many large trees, especially elms, about a house, are a 

 gure indication of family distinction and worth. Any evi- 

 dence of care bestowed on these trees receives tlie traveler's 

 tespect as for a nobler husbandry than the raising of corn 

 and potatoes. Henry David Thoreau. 



It will not do to be exclusive in our tastes about trees. 

 There is liardly one of them which has not peculiar beauties 

 in some fitting place for it. Oliver Wendell Holmes. 



In any save the smallest places the trees form the 

 framework of the plantings. They are the first to be 

 considered, and the first to be placed. And unless they 

 are felicitously selected and happily placed and well 

 grown the whole composition is apt to fall to pieces, since 

 it lacks the necessary framework. 



Moreover, trees are sometimes able to make a whole 

 landscape by themselves. A forest is frequently beau- 

 tiful. And if there are pleasant openings, with long 

 perspectives, and views of wooded hills, or of craggy 

 mountains, or of river, lake or sea, the landscape requires 

 little else to make it satisfying to the most fastidious 

 taste. 



Then, too, a tree is a beautiful thing by itself. 

 Each good tree has its own peculiar and sufficient beau- 

 ties, and even the blasted and storm-torn tree may make 

 a fascinating picture. In all large plantings there 

 should be included a number of specimen trees, so 

 placed as to show their individual good qualities, and so 

 grown as to possess those good qualities in the greatest 

 measure. 



For all these reasons the selection of suitable trees 

 becomes one of the landscnpe gardener's first and most 



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