HOMESTEAD LANDSCAPES. 163 



or farms is in the trees, and the shade afforded b}- thera. I care 

 not how costly a dwelling may be erected, or how lavish the ex- 

 penditure upon roads and pathways, and in adorning the grounds 

 with fountains and statuary ; the place if destitute of trees will 

 look cold and dreary in winter, with the bleak winds coursing 

 over it. and be heated in summer like a Sahara under the untem- 

 pered glare of the sun. vSuch places can never be homes of com- 

 fort, but will be abodes of malcontent. 



Contrast the greater charm of the more humble dwelling sur- 

 rounded by trees, which screen it from the force of both wind and 

 sun ; offering in the warm season a cool retreat beneath their 

 spreading boughs, and imparting freshness and vitality to the air 

 by moist and fragrant exhalations from their leaves ; beautiful in 

 summer, not only by their shade, but also by their variety of form 

 and foliage ; and in autumn by the rare coloring they spread over 

 the landscape, excelling the work of any artist's brush ; and later 

 imparting to the air the soft warmth of their decaying leaves ; 

 and even in winter showing variety of form and modest coloring 

 assumed by branch and twig. Surely no one would think of liv- 

 ing in the country without surrounding his dwelling with trees ; 

 not only the land adjacent to the house, but the whole farm should 

 be made to receive from them the benefit they bestow. There- 

 fore, the man who plans wisely for external home adornment will 

 devote much time and thought to the study of arboriculture, and 

 his grounds will show his proficiency therein by the skill displayed 

 in so grouping his trees as best to bring out their characteristics. 



I am sorry to say that the ordinary country dweller seems to 

 have an aversion to trees, and where one is found who has some 

 fondness for them, he often shows a fearful ignorance of their 

 actual value. I cannot conceive how the descendants of tree- 

 cultivating Europeans can have acquired the tree-destroying habits 

 of the present generation, unless it be because their fathers, 

 having to hew their farms out of the wilderness, thought only of 

 clearing them of all trees, and thus their offspring derived from 

 them a tree killing instinct, just as we see children of dissolute 

 parents inheriting their instincts to crime. 



Whatever the cause may be, the average Yankee seems to have 

 a natural aversion to all indigenous growth, and as soon as a tree 

 shows a stem that can be split for cordwood, he is uneasy till he 

 has prostrated it with his axe ; and he never feels in fit mood to 



