Trees for the Home Grounds 



93 



Tea's weeping mulberry, forming an 

 arbor (see picture below) 



perpetuates those that please his fancy by grafting, budding or rooting. 



In most instances, the budding or grafting is on the trunk of an upright 



form of the same or an alHed species. 



In Salix Bahylonica, a native of the Levant, 



we have a weeping tree that in the seventeenth 



century was supposed to be the willow mentioned 



in the 137th Psalm, upon which the sorrowing 



captive Jews hung their harps. It thus became 



the typical tree of sorrow. 



This tree is not generally hardy in the 



northern States, but the late Thomas Meehan 



had called attention to a sport from it originat- 

 ing upon the grounds of Mr. T. C. Thurlow, 



West Newbury, Massachusetts, of a more upright 

 form, that has proved 

 hardy there and at the 

 experiment station in 



Nebraska. There is, however, a substitute for it 

 in the Wisconsin weeping willow, a tree whose origin 

 is clouded in mystery. It is suitable only in large 

 grounds, where ample room may be devoted to it. 

 The willow has given us another handsome 

 v/eeping form in Salix purpurea, var. pendnla, the 

 purple osier of Europe, which is in reality a broad, 

 spreading, decumbent shrub, often nearly ten feet 

 high. This, when grafted on an upright trunk, is 

 known in our catalogues as "The New American 

 Weeper," and is one of the most graceful of the 

 smaller pendulous trees. The grayish-olive tone of 

 its leafage renders it an admirable subject to be 

 placed well to the front, where a foil of dark-green 

 foliage makes it a conspicuous, though generally 

 harmonious, object. 



Undoubtedly the loveliest of all hardy weeping 



trees is the cut -leaved weeping birch when at its maturity, but unfortunately, 



in most sections, it dies at the top before reaching an age when it displays 



its pendulous growth to the best advantage. 



ing mulberry on 

 own roots 



