148 COME INTO THE GARDEN 



All town streets will of course always be 

 planted with ornamental trees, quite properly; 

 but for all those small gardens where trees are 

 possible, I cannot feel that the purely orna- 

 mental are quite as suitable, as a matter of 

 fact, as the more truly domestic trees which 

 have companied with man so many ages. The 

 latter suit his immediate environment more 

 completely, consequently they suit the very ar- 

 tificial conditions which his presence en masse 

 creates, very much better than oaks and elms, 

 beeches and hickorys, and all the forest royal- 

 ties possibly can. However strange it may 

 seem to us at first to think of using fruit trees 

 altogether, there is, too, most ancient and ex- 

 cellent precedent for them rather than orna- 

 mental trees, in such planting. Indeed our 

 present practice is very modern — almost wholly 

 of to-day — and prevails only where man has 

 not yet learned values and where proportions 

 are distorted. 



But whatever the choice, the first and most 

 important thing to be settled about a tree, on 

 small grounds especially, is its location. This 

 is influenced by several things, some with an 

 elusive tendency to wait until the tree planter 

 has done his work before presenting themselves. 

 The thought of shade and inviting summer cool- 



