THE GENESEE FAEMEB. (\ i^ 



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3inrtiriiltiiral JejiartmEnt 



CONDUCTED BY P. BAEKT. 



OUR NATIVE TREES. 



All at once there appears to have sprung up a very unusual appreciation of the beauty 

 of our native trees. In half a dozen publications, issued at widely distant points, we 

 find their eulogies set forth in the most glowing and enthusiastic terms. This is one of 

 the most striking evidences of the growth of real taste that we have yet met with in all 

 that has been said and written on horticultural subjects. As long as the riches and 

 beauty of the sylvan treasures that nature has so unsparingly scattered over our own 

 land, and around our own homes, remained unnoticed and unadmired, so long would it 

 be indeed a most hopeless task to attempt to promote improvement in that department 

 of horticulture which depends entirely upon taste. It is quite impossible that any one 

 should be possessed of what is called taste, as relates to landscape or gardening, 

 without having felt the grandeur and the beauty of our natural plantations and land- 

 scapes. What use would it be to talk of the artistic beauties of an English park, to a 

 man who had lived his life time in the beautiful valley of the Genesee without seeing 

 anything to admire in its charming landscape — its noble forests and broad meadows, 

 blended with a skill that mocks man's puny efforts ; — a man who had passed up and 

 down the Hudson river a thousand times without feeling a single impression from its 

 grand and picturesque scenery, the rock-work of which, compared to the artificial rock- 

 work of the landscape gardener, is as a child's toy compared to a genuine gothic castle, 

 or an outlet of a mill dam to the falls of Niagara. It is idle to describe the beauties of 

 a Deodar Cedar to one who has not comprehended the grace and beauty of the Hem- 

 lock Spruce that grows by his door, or to talk of the lofty Pine of the Himalayas to 

 one who has never looked upon our noble White Pine with admiration. The cultiva- 

 tion of rural taste, like the exercise of that greatest of virtues, charity, should " begin 

 at home." Until we learn to love and admire the sweet and beautiful violet that 

 blooms at our feet, it is folly to send to the antipodes for something more beautiful in 

 iraao'ination. We rejoice, therefore, to witness some healthy symptoms of an awaken- 

 ing sense of our native beauties, and to hear of people actually admiring and planting 

 our native trees. We have never heard so many people speak of the beautiful autumn 

 tints of our forests, as we have this past autumn ; and this we are happy to note as 

 another strong evidence of the growth of taste. The colors of the dying foliage have 

 been indeed unusually brilliant and striking ; but they have been so only to those who 

 have some perceptions of the beautiful, and in whose hearts there is at least the ffcrin 

 of the love of nature. 



This is a subject on which we would like to dwell, but we must await another oppor- 

 tunity. At present we will make a practical suggestion ; for practical we must be, if 

 nothing else. 



There is many a good, honest farmer, whose dwelling stands bare as a light-house on 

 an ocean rock, exposed to every wind that blows and every ray of sun that a merciless 

 mid-summer day pours down on its devoted walls and windows. The very chickens 

 can not find a shrub to shelter them, without making a journey of half a mile. Now 

 that winter is upon us, and there are idle men sighing for something to do, and idle 

 horses gnawing their stalls and growing unruly for lack of exercise and labor ; go into 

 the woods some fine, mild day, when there is snow enough on the ground to make 

 comfortable sleighing, take up some fine young maples, elms, basswoods, tulip trees, 



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