190 DECIDUOUS TREES 



I wish I could come back in five hundred years so as to find all 

 the Kilmarnock weeping willows gone. The original mulberry has 

 some dignity and interest but Tea's weeping mulberry on the 

 lawn is simply ludicrous. May the good Lord send a special bug 

 to devour all the horticultural "weepers," especially the maples, 

 dogwoods, lindens, and oaks. In the garden the bug should spare 

 them, especially if they form tea houses or summer houses for 

 children but let no guilty weeper on the lawn escape. If 

 we need pendulous foliage somewhere why not plant something 

 that is naturally pendulous, like the Wisconsin willow ? * 



THE SHADE EFFECT 



There is no sense in planting any of the trees that we commonly 

 plant solely for shade, because they die too soon or get unsightly. 

 If we need shade without delay we can build a veranda or summer 

 house or transplant a big tree. And if we plant long-lived 

 trees for other purposes the 1 shade problem will be solved in- 

 cidentally. 



The English have an equally foolish passion for retaining old 

 trees that are in the way, simply because they are old. "Most of 

 us plant too thickly," says William Robinson, the trees "get too 

 close and we neglect to thin them, the result being mouldy, close 

 avenues, dripping, sunless groves, and dismal shrubberies." 



Whenever our houses are made damp and mouldy by trees it is 

 usually because trees with horizontal branches overhang them, so 

 that there is no chance for air to circulate. The ideal tree near 

 a house is an American elm, not the English, which is a most 

 treacherous tree, dropping great limbs without warning. But the 

 American elm seems doomed. This is too bad because we have 

 no other tree that acts like an umbrella, leaving a generous space 



* Weeping trees were reviewed in The Garden Magazine, Vol. V., p. 76. 



