26 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1898. 



planted, almost to the pole. The White oak, Scarlet oak, Red 

 Oak, Yellow oak. Chestnut oak. Pine oak, are the leading 

 sorts. There is no class of trees that grows so stately and are 

 longer lived than the oaks. 



The Beeches (Fagus) are very valuable trees for ornament, 

 differing in their variety from other trees, being peculiar in their 

 tendency of retaining their leaves during the winter ; and, either 

 green in leaf or browned by frost, form a picturesque family the 

 year round. 



The White, a native beech, is indigenous here on high or 

 moist places, but rarely bears nuts as it does further north. 

 The branches extend outward from the trunk in a horizontal 

 position ; the leaf, a light green, is graceful in its eflfect. 



The English beech is more compact and of slower growth, is 

 stronger in form and the foliage of deeper color, remaining on 

 the trees during the winter and until the new leaf puts forth in 

 the spring. 



The Purple beech is so strikingly beautiful in the opening 

 leaf that it is desirable in any grounds, and always an object of 

 admiration. They prove to be long lived but will bear liberal 

 dressing of manure, which has a marked effect in the color of the 

 foliage. 



If I ever coveted a tree, the property of another, it was the 

 Purple beech ; and I am not prepared, either for the lawn, or 

 for a conspicuous position in any grounds, to assign the Purple 

 beech a second place. It is said to have its origin in Germany. 

 When properly grown, it has so many desirable characteristics 

 that no grounds of any pretensions should be without it. I 

 know of a tree where the lower branches extend fifty feet. In 

 early spring, when the leaves are intensely purple, and when 

 agitated by wind in strong sunlight, its brilliancy is unequalled 

 by any of the tree family, and would vie successfully with any 

 of the goro-eous tints of other trees in autumn. 



The Fern-Leaved beech is the most charming and shapely of 

 the beeches ; with its leaf so artistically cut, and furnished in 

 the greatest abundance, it makes a striking object of symmetry 

 and beauty, and withstands the ice storms without injury ; a 



