146 CONIFERS 



from a new point of view. I was to find out what were the half- 

 dozen most important trees, shrubs, vines, etc., in England and 

 their long-lived equivalents for America. For example, every- 

 where in England you see the redwood a native of California. 

 Our equivalent for it is hemlock, for both trees have a feathery 

 effect produced by flat sprays. Such a statement is calculated 

 to give a botanist a sick headache, because the fruits of these 

 trees are utterly different. But we do not cultivate conifers for 

 their fruits. Plain tree lovers are primarily interested in the text- 

 ure of the foliage. We know a pine by its brush, a spruce by its 

 stiff needles, an arborvitae by its fan, and so on. 



In other words, it was the landscape value of garden materials 

 I went to study. I wanted to see with my own eyes which trees 

 were grave and which were gay; why people gush about box, yew, 

 and rhododendrons, and whether we cannot grow a tree that 

 looks just like the cedar of Lebanon except to a botanist. It 

 was human interest I was after the kind of thing that never gets 

 into the botanies. I wanted to see how to make America as 

 beautiful as England, and how to stop wasting a million dollars 

 a year. 



OUR EQUIVALENT FOR YEW 



The yew is the most important ornamental conifer for Eng- 

 land, chiefly because it is the longest-lived of all trees the English 

 have. "The Fotheringal yew," says Miss Rogers, "proved by the 

 rings on its stump that it had lived nearly three thousand years." 

 It also has the following strong points: (i) It holds its lower branches 

 better than any conifer I know, even when considerably crowded 

 and shaded. (2) It stands clipping well and therefore makes a 

 better hedge in Europe than any other conifer. (3) It is just the 

 right height for a decorative tree, since anything over thirty feet 



