ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 1 2 7 



roundings; while its graceful, overhanging branches afford pleasant shade and 

 favorite nesting places for birds. 



Many of the streets of New Haven city are lined on either side with long 

 rows of fine large elm trees whose branches, gracefully pendent, meet and form 

 lofty arches. It is, therefore, often called the City of Elms and is considered one 

 of the most beautiful cities of the New England States. 



The American elm is very extensively planted as a shade tree both in private 

 grounds and along public roads ; and on account of its many desirable qualities 

 is universally liked as a village tree; and I think it one of the best adapted to 

 be chosen for a State tree, and justly entitled to a large number of votes. 



F. C. STEUART. 



THE HICKORY. 



There have been a number of trees suggested as candidates for the honor of 

 being the State tree of New York ; the oak, the pine, the elm, the tulip-tree, 

 the maple, the walnut and many others. All are beautiful, but there are other 

 considerations besides beauty in choosing a State tree, and the one most symbol- 

 ical of New York in its size, vigor and productiveness will receive the choice. 



The oak and pine fulfill many of these conditions, but they are the generally 

 acknowledged soldier trees. The oak fights the storms of centuries, and is so 

 strong that it has become a byword, and when we wish to say men are invinci- 

 ble in their courage, we say they have " hearts of oak." The pine is a sentinel, 

 and likes to choose some barren, lonely height to do solemn picket-duty. But 

 these are not lovable trees, they are not productive trees ; they are sturdy, 

 independent, and hardy, and New York is all of these, but it is also a State of 

 homes, a lovable State, and not a fighting State. It has no dangerous enemies 

 to fight. Why should the population, sleek Dutch market-gardeners from 

 West Long Island, hurried business men from the cities and inky and theoreti- 

 cal model farmers from the center of the State, turn out to make a bayonet 

 charge among the handful of dirty and drunken Indians on the State reserva- 

 tions, or some equally harmless people ? 



Neither is it a lazy, effeminate State, to be symbolized by that very fop of 

 trees, the tulip-tree, with its gorgeous flowers in spring, and its brilliant leaves 

 in fall ; or by the dainty lady elm, with its graceful twig-drapery. Nor is it a 

 State mourning over past glories and present decay ; a willow might be emblem 

 of Egypt or Greece or Italy, but it is not of prosperous mercantile New York. 



But there is a tree which seems to typify the State, a beautiful, vigorous, 

 productive tree, not as large as some others perhaps, but size is not always 

 strength, and important New York would cover aver)- small corner of unimpor- 

 tant Texas ; a distinctively American tree, therefore fit to be a typical tree of a 

 typical American State ; and this beautiful hickory tree has another quality, 

 admirable in a tree, or a State, or a man, or any thing liable to misfortune ; you 

 may bend a hickory sapling to the ground, and when you release it, it springs 

 back as before, unbroken. This recuperative power is as remarkable in the 

 State as in the tree. Our own Principal told us, in his delightful address on 

 the Centennial day, how a hundred years ago New York city was an impover- 

 ished, war-ravaged little town of twenty-five thousand inhabitants. As soon as 



