THE GEITESEE FARMER. 



281 



them too freely. Though elegant, graceful, and 

 beautiful, they communicate, when too numerous, 

 a mournful aspect to the landscape. On this ac- 

 count they are peculiarly appropriate for cemete- 



THE KUEOPEAN WEEPING ASH. 



ries. But we do not want to give our dwellings 

 the appearance of mausoleums. No grounds can 

 be perfect without a few weeping trees, but they 

 must be judiciously ari-anged and not too numerous. 

 The European "Weeping- Ash — {Fraxinus excel- 

 iior fendula) — is one of the oldest and most widely 

 disseminated trees of this character. Grafted on a 

 common Ash, eight to twelve feet from the ground, 

 it makes a tree of great beauty. This variety of 

 the Ash was discovered in a field in Cambridge- 

 shire, England, about the middle of the last cen- 

 tury. From this grafts were taken, and the variety 

 was rapidly disseminated over Europe and America. 

 In the environs of London there are many very fine 

 specimens of this tree, generally from 15 to 25 feet 

 high, with branches drooping to the ground, and 

 covering a space of from twenty to thirty feet in 



diameter, or upwards. There is a specimen in the 

 garden of a public house in Pentonville, of which 

 the branches are trained on horizontal trellises, at 

 the height of about seven feet from the ground, 

 over twenty-eight seats and fourteen tables, cover- 

 ing a space thirty-six feet long by twenty-one feet 

 wide! 



The Ash will grow in very barren soils, and in 

 low mucky situations, where. Woodward says, 

 'the roots act as underdrains, and render the 

 ground about them firm and hard." Lang, an ex- 

 cellent authority, however, states that " it is found 

 in the highest perfection on dry loamy soils. On 

 such it grows spontaneously. In moist, but not 

 wet soils, it grows fast but soon sinks." It wiU 

 grow freely on most soils, if the situation be toler- 

 ably good, except on retentive clays. 



" The Ash asks not a depth of fruitful mould, 

 Bat, like frugality, on little means 

 It thrives; and high o'er creviced ruins spreads 

 Its ampl'^ shade, or on the naked rock, 

 That nods in air, wiih graceful limbs depends." 



The Weeping Sophora — {Sophora Jajwnioa 

 pendula.) This is a remarkable variety of the Ja- 

 panese Sophora. It is a leguminous tree, and the 

 foliage closely resembles the laburnum and locust. 

 The shoots are quite pendulous. When grafted 

 near the ground, the shoots run along the surface, 

 like those of a trailing plant, to a very great extent 



a.rnAUENBEnoen.sa. 

 THE WEEPING SOPHORA. 



from the main stem — extending, in good soil, six 

 or eight feet in one season. Gralted on tall stocks 

 of the Japan Sophora, it sends downward a head 

 of long, slender, green shoots, and forms one of the 



