Notes and Gleanings. 4j 



ducing a brilliant effect. In New England, the horse-chestnut is most generall)! 

 planted by the sides of the street, or near houses, for sliade ; and it does not 

 seem to me well suited for this purpose. Its thick, close foliage makes so dense 

 a shade, as to too much exclude air and light when protection from the sun only 

 is desired. The trees of England do not have, I think, for size or beauty, any 

 superiority over those of the United States of the same species: indeed, I am 

 not sure that a comparison between those of the two countries would not be in 

 favor of the latter. It certainly seemed to me that I had seen larger and finer 

 individual trees in the United States than I ever did of the same kind in Eng- 

 land. This superiority struck me especially as more marked in some kinds of 

 hardy evergreen-trees, as the Norway spruce for example, perhaps than in any 

 other. It has never been my fortune to see specimens of this tree in England 

 at all equal to many that I have seen of it in America. The gay hues and deep 

 tints, that, instead of green, the foliage of the American forests assumes after 

 the first frosts, — thus making the transition of the seasons from summer to 

 autumn, and making of the wooded hillsides, as they lie in the warm Octo- 

 ber sun, with their golden yellows, rich browns, and bright scarlets and crimson, 

 a most gorgeous picture, — can hardly be said to have a counterpart in England. 

 Not but that, at the close of the year, the foliage there, as decay commences, 

 takes other colors than its usual green ; but these colors are almost exclu- 

 sively yellows of different shades and browns: while, the scarlets and crim- 

 sons being almost wholly wanting, the picture formed by its forest-scenery 

 is much less brilliant than that of America. But if — -which I scarcely dare 

 assert — a comparison of the forest-trees of America and England should, as 

 regards their size and beauty, be in favor of the first-named country, and if the 

 brilliant colors of its autumnal woodland-scenery are wanting in that of Eng- 

 land, in one respect, at least, England has greatly, in relation to her trees, the 

 advantage over the eastern part of the United States. Under the milder cli- 

 mate of England, many trees thrive and flourish that would hardly endure the 

 rigors of a New-England winter, or the great alternations of heat and cold there 

 so common ; thus permitting in England the use, in planting, of a greater num- 

 ber of varieties of trees, and giving the advantage, for ornamental purposes, of 

 a greater variety of shapes and foliage. The yew, for example, to take only 

 one of these, thrives and flourishes in England, and is, from its large size, very 

 dark-green persistent foliage, frequently used there in parks and other grounds 

 with good effect, but is, so far as I am aware, wholly wanting in New England, 

 and could not, I suppose, be there acclimatized. I know that the yew, from its 

 dark, funereal aspect, is generally associated in our mind with melancholy sub- 

 jects, and is thought to be more fitting for church-yards than pleasure-grounds. 

 Yet it is frequently a fine tree ; and I remember a park in Shropshire, cele- 

 brated for its beauty, where some fine yew-trees were by no means its least 

 attractive feature. The yew is an extremely long-lived tree : one at least, to 

 which my attention was called, was said to be more than eight hundred years 

 old, and, though hollow in its trunk, seemed then to have sufficient vigor to last, 

 if no accident prevented, at least another century. From the many varieties of 

 trees in England wholly new to nie, I was led to believe that the number 



