JULY. 



319 



botanist, is more apparent than its similarity to any other 

 tree, and to the southern Cypress it has no superficial resem- 

 blance, except in wood and bark. Like the latter, however, 

 it is attached to cold and gloomy swamps, where no other 

 tree will thrive, where it often forms a dense growth that is 

 almost impenetrable. 



I have said that the White Cedar cannot be used for orna- 

 mental purposes. I ought to qualify this remark : for many 

 an ugly half-inundated morass, which cannot be drained, 

 might be transformed into a beautiful forest by planting it 

 with White Cedars, which in the course of time would be 

 exceedingly valuable to their owner, and serve also the need- 

 ful purpose of covering unwholesome stagnant waters. Mr. 

 Emerson, whose work on the " Trees of Massachusetts" is 

 unsurpassed in the concise elegance of its style, in its taste- 

 ful comments, and its useful suggestions, makes the follow- 

 ing remarks on this point : " The White Cedar has so many 

 excellent qualities, that, in an industrious and manufacturing 

 community, it can never cease to be valuable. It is one of 

 those trees, therefore, which ought to be cultivated in great 

 numbers, to supply the wants of posterity. Fortunately, it 

 is one which can be cultivated with less trouble, and at less 

 expense, than any other forest tree, and it conflicts with no 

 other. There are large tracts of cold, swampy land, which 

 could be drained only at great expense, which might in their 

 present state be made to produce valuable forests of this tree. 

 It would be only necessary to gather the seed from the forests 

 already growing, and cast it abundantly, in the fall of the 

 year, upon the surface of the ground or water, in the morasses 

 or swamps intended for its use. In six or eighteen months 

 the seeds will vegetate. In a few years, thinnings might be 

 made, which, for enclosures alone, would pay a high rate of 

 interest upon the value of the land and of the labor be- 

 stowed." 



Our operations for improving the beauty of landscape 

 ought not to be confined to the garden or to the enclosures 

 of our dwelling-houses. I should form a contemptible opin- 

 ion of the taste of one, who should build an elegant house, 



