36 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



absence of formality in the arrangement of their branches. 

 The white pine and the hemlock have none of this rigidity ; 

 and to the flexibility of the terminal branches, and the ab- 

 sence of primness in the larger ones, the hemlock chiefly 

 owes its superior elegance and gracefulness. 



The generality of people readily associate the diflferent 

 kinds of trees with the soil and situation in which they have 

 been accustomed to find them. I never see a grove of yel- 

 low pines, without thinking of those barren sandy plains, 

 which are their true habitats ; and of the slender white birch- 

 es, that seem to be their inseparable companions. No accu- 

 rate observer of New England scenery would introduce a 

 juniper (red cedar) into a painting of native landscape, ex- 

 cept as the accompaniment of rocky hills and pastures, gray 

 with crispy lichens, and a meagre and stinted shrubbery. 

 The white cedar, on the contrary, being found in half inun- 

 dated swamps, is allied with mossy fountains, fern-clad re- 

 cesses, dripping rocks, and rank unprofitable herbs. But the 

 white pine and the hemlock are the beautiful occupants of 

 the most valuable lands, and remind us of plenty and cultiva- 

 tion, as well as of the primitive charms of nature. The 

 other trees of this family, the firs with erect cones, and the 

 spruces with pendulous cones, and the arbor-vitass, are at- 

 tached to a more northerly climate, and are associated with 

 our journeyings by the great lakes, and the valley of the St. 

 Lawrence. 



It is for the most part only in the borders of a grove, and 

 on the brows of hills, that the individual trees of a pine-wood 

 exhibit their characteristic forms and beauty. More than 

 any other description of trees are the pines and their con- 

 geners injured in appearance by growing in a dense forest. 

 Being more prone than the deciduous trees to send up a 

 single undivided shaft, and having no power to mend their 

 shape, by putting out new lateral branches, after the first 

 growth has become abortive, these trees, as commonly seen 

 in the forest, though often superb in their height, have nei- 

 ther comeliness nor grace. The deciduous trees, though 

 affected more or less in the same manner, have a tendency 



