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ii ) THE GENESEE FAEMEE. 2T ( ^ 



iinrtoltarol Se^inrtmetit. 



CONDUCTED BY P. BAEEY. 



THE AILANTUS, OR "TREE OF HEAVEN." 



We well remember, some fourteen or fifteen years ago, the Ailantus mania in New 

 York city. Hundreds of well grown, stately horse-chestnuts, lindens, and other good 

 old fashioned trees of that sort, were torn from the sidewalks in the " up town " districts, 

 in the most unceremonious manner. No backwoodsman was ever more merciless than 

 were those New Yorkers. These trees had been carefully planted, nursed, and watched 

 through their tender youth, until they had arrived at ample, elegant, shady tree-hood. 

 They had converted the arid pavements into refreshing and pleasant avenues, and their 

 wide-spread heads had thrown cooling shadows on the walls and windows and porches 

 of those New Yorkers' dwellings, rendering a summer life in town far less excruciating 

 than it had been. Rents were raised in consequence of the increased comfort, and the 

 fashionable, suburban air which these trees imparted, and often was it said, " What a 

 paradise we have here now with these beautiful trees !" But, alas ! human admiration 

 and human friendship are sadly fickle. These trees oftended — oSqu^q^ grievously — and 

 that, too, in the very prime of their beauty and usefulness, when all eyes were upon 

 them, and their praises, like rhapsodies, upon every lip. It is all at once discovered that 

 they harbor insects. A lady has been startled with a caterpillar in her drawing-room ; 

 another lady has been very much annoyed with similar visitors ; and a third has been 

 tormented daily with perfect showers and swarms of insects of various kinds, blown into 

 the open windows upon her elegant furniture. The newspapers take up the subject, and 

 the insect story is told, and re-told, until it becomes so aggravated that one's flesh 

 crawls to read it, and the whole race of trees that occupied the sidewalks are unani- 

 mously pronounced a 7misance. The shade and beauty which they imparted, were all 

 forgotten in the general, and we might almost say foolish, outcry about insects. So go 

 people to extremes. 



Just at that period, the Ailantus was growing into notice. It was represented as 

 being from China, of exceedingly rapid growth, with smooth, erect trunk, and long, 

 feathered foliage ; indeed, every way so noble as to be styled " The Tree of Heaven." 

 •Its great recommendation, however, just at that time, was its complete exemption from 

 insects of any and every kind. Well, the Ailantus, as every body knows, is not a slow 

 grower, and it was not long until it had reached the top of fame's ladder. Every one 

 who inquired about street trees, was told of "the magnificent Ailantus ;" " it out-grows 

 everything, making eight or ten feet in a year ; its leaves are four or five feet long, and 

 it has noble spreading branches ; but, above all, no insect will come near it." " Good ! 

 that is just the tree for streets," and so one street after another, old streets and new 

 ones, were planted with Ailantus, until " up town " had become completely orientalized 

 with this famous tree of the Gods, (" Gotterbanm,^^) as the Germans called it. So 

 popular did it become, that people were not satisfied to have it merely in the streets 

 and public promenades, as at first recommended, but it must be in the garden, in the 

 door-yard, in fact everywhere. The nurserymen exerted all proper industry in propa- 

 gating it ; seeds were imported by the hundred weight ; suckers were saved ; and in a 

 dozen years or so the country was pretty well supplied. It had become decidedly 

 common. The Ailantus had had its day — poor, doomed Ailantus ! With all your 

 good qualities, you must become an outcast, and the same voices that in former days 

 were wont to speak your praises, must now cry " down with you." Poor Ailantus ! 

 - w But the Ailantus need not complain ; it is the way of the world. i r 



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