of Vermont Plants. 341 



oaks, the sad reminiscences of better days. Such tracts of 

 land should be subjected to useful culture ; and where a 

 plentiful growth of wiry grass and dry lichens now only 

 obtain, may yet, some fifty years hence, be seen the per- 

 petual verdure of resinous trees or the rich periodical vivid- 

 ness of useful and ornamental vegetation. To this pur- 

 pose, if a mistaken agriculture has unfitted the soil for the 

 speedy production of native trees, there are those of other 

 countries admirably adapted; and so advantageous already 

 have been the efforts of science in accHmation and cultiva- 

 tion, that scarcely a soil can be found on which some more 

 useful tree or plant may not be introduced, which would 

 be exactly fitted for its peculiarities or capacities. From 

 what facts, on this subject, have fallen under our limited 

 observation, we are induced to firmly believe, that experi- 

 ment and zeal only are required to convert our depaupera- 

 ted fields and the most barren of our pastures, the most 

 arid of our plains, into wildernesses of smiling and luxu- 

 riant beauty. 



Nor are these remarks inapplicable to the inhabitants of 

 our cities, who breathe the hot and stifled air of confined 

 streets and crowded marts. We are oftentimes surprised 

 to find how negligent of their real comfort and luxury are 

 the dwellers in cities, who have at their command every 

 facility to add usefulness and beauty to their stately man- 

 sions and cheerful homes. Many a splendid tree is capable 

 of surviving a northern winter in the protection of a city- 

 street, which would pine away and perish in a freer atmos- 

 phere. What magnificent gardens, what forest Edens, 

 might not be reared along the broad avenues of those 

 myriad towns, that are springing up, like magic, in the 

 West and East, and that are populating, too, with the 

 refined and educated, who have only to learn, to readily 

 appreciate what is good and what conducive to the happi- 

 ness of society. Every broad elm, which spreads its limbs 

 so gracefully and tenderly over the streets of Boston, hap- 

 pily as yet somewhat remarkable for its fine trees, is far 

 better than a most vigilant Board of Health for that por- 

 tion of our city; and despite gas-pipes and aqueducts, 

 which ramify beneath the hard pavement, there may be 

 found room enough yet and to spare, for many a fine tree 

 more, of varied contour and form, to interlace its roots, 

 and, with its refreshing shade, recall, perchance, to men of 

 busiest pursuits, the happy hours of childhood, when trees 



