HARDY CONIFERS FOR PRIVATE ESTATES. 

 By John Dunbar, Rochester, X. Y. 



Delivered before the Society, February 15, 1908. 



Among the hardy subjects that beautify the grounds of small or 

 large estates hardy conifers usually hold an important position. 

 WTierever the taste and love for ornamental gardening have been 

 highly developed the interest and admiration for hardy conifers 

 have held a correspondingly high place. They convey to us the 

 various aspects of dignity, nobility, grace, and refinement, if we 

 carefully study and analyze their outlines, when they are growing 

 in conditions that allow their best development. The gracefulness 

 of the Hemlock Spruce, the nobility of the ^Yhite Fir, the picturesque 

 features of the Pitch Pine, the refined aspect of the Swiss Stone 

 Pine, are not by any means farfetched. They have especial 

 features at all times of the year, and they look particularly cheerful 

 during the winter period. 



In the British Islands hardy conifers are much loved and exten- 

 sively planted on private estates, and they have always held a 

 leading position in ornamental gardening, and their varying char- 

 acteristics have been adapted in manifold ways to appropriate 

 landscape scenes. The climate of the British Islands is however 

 better adapted to the healthy growth of a much larger number of 

 species than can be grown in the northeastern states of this country. 



In the older settled portions of this country conifers have been 

 extensively planted on private estates, and a few interesting col- 

 lections have been formed. Undoubtedly the finest private col- 

 lection in this country is the Hunnewell Pinetum at Wellesley, 

 Massachusetts. The oldest trees are about 65 years of age and are 

 now in the stage of what might be termed adolescence, and show a 

 high state of intelligent cultivation, and perhaps from no other 

 source in this country can such object lessons be learned about the 



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