1 60 May The Birch always Beautiful. 



themselves upon the Louvre and come to Versailles and the 

 Trianon : we must, in addition, endure the contact of the 

 inferior species in our woods, justly rejected to the second 

 rank, and condemned to inferior functions.' * 



Now, on behalf of the birch especially, I protest 

 energetically against this comparison with the lowest 

 Parisian democracy. So far from being coarse and offen- 

 sive, it is the most delicately elegant of all the trees 

 that prosper in our climate. It is always beautiful : in 

 winter for the exquisite refinement of its ramification, 

 only to be followed by the most finished and accom- 

 plished drawing ; in spring and summer for the beauty 

 of its cloud of light foliage ; in autumn for its color. 

 The writer just quoted mentions also, and witfi equal 

 disdain, the willow and Spanish chestnut. The beauty 

 of the natural willow is very little known, because the 

 farmers almost invariably make a pollard of it, which 

 is the artificial production of a painful and horrible 

 deformity. Very possibly the critic may have supposed, 

 as many people do, that willows are born so ; but the 

 truth is, that if you only have the kindness to let the 

 willow alone he becomes a very good landscape tree, 

 and there are species which cast their arms out with a 

 noble freedom and grace, having also a fair stature. Of 

 the Spanish chestnut one can scarcely exaggerate the 

 merits. His expression is that of sturdy strength : his 

 trunk and limbs are built, not like those of Apollo, but 



* This passage is quoted from 'L'Union,' Sept. 2, 1873. It is a 

 very curious example of a political spirit invading the domain of 

 art. 



