Isaac Hicks & Son, Westbury Station, N. Y. Evergreens 



45 



Windbreak and Screen of Norway Spruce, separating vegetable and small-fruit garden from the lawn, at residence of 

 Mr. J. R. Maxwell, Glen Cove. We have 160,000 White Spruce that will make such dense, narrow, permanent hedges 

 better than the Norway Spruce. Now is the economical time to buy them. 



Spruces Picea 



Erroneously Abies, including Pseudotsuga 



The Spruce family ranks equal with the Pines. It is less planted for lumber, but more used for orna- 

 mental planting and windbreak. All the Spruces are pointed trees, sprightly and cheerful in appearance. 



Norway Spruce Picea excelsa 



The most rapid-growing of the family, but not 

 the handsomest. It is excellent for hedges, as it 

 stands clipping well, and if kept widest at the base, 

 so that the sun reaches the lower branches, it will 

 keep thick to the ground. A young and vigorous 

 Norway Spruce is a handsome tree. To keep it so, 

 nip off the tips of the leading branches. Otherwise, 

 the trees may become open, ragged and haggard in 

 appearance when twenty to seventy-five years old. 



The dislike for all evergreens expressed by a few 

 people is based mainly upon Norway Spruces under 

 this condition. It is about the only evergreen they 

 have known. The American nurserymen are partly 

 to blame for this opinion. It has been easier to 

 import Norway Spruce than to collect seed of better 

 species. They grow quickly when young and arc 

 easy to transplant. The buyer of trees is also partly 

 to blame because he could heretofore generally get a 

 bigger tree for the money in Norway Spruce than of 

 better kinds. We recommend the Norway Spruce 

 for hedges, screens, planting on steep sand banks, 

 and as a quick-growing filler in groups of orna- 

 mental evergreens to be moved later. 



White Spruce 



The measure of our faith in 

 stock of 160,000 trees. 



Perhaps sixty years ago, 

 schooners and sent them to 

 A few White Spruce trees were 

 in what is now the garden of 

 Winthrop. They are now 60 



Picea alba 



White Spruce is our 



Joseph Hicks built 

 Maine for lumber. 



brought and planted 

 Mr. Robert Dudley 

 feet high, full and 



dense from ground to top, in decided contrast to the 

 gaunt and rusted Norway Spruces of the same age. 



At the arboretum of the late Charles A. Dana, 

 Glen Cove, there are trees of similar age within 50 

 yards of the sea-wall, fully exposed to the sweep of 

 winds across Long Island Sound. They are in per- 

 fect condition, and a beautiful blue-green, unin- 

 jured by the severest winter. On the Rockaway 

 peninsula there are a number of specimens that arc 

 thriving excellently, being the handsomest evergreens 

 planted and the only old ones dense at the base. 

 At numerous other points along the ocean front on 

 Long Island, there are handsome dense specimens. 



On the Hempstead Plains, even in the most wind- 

 swept portions of Garden City, the White Spruce 

 has proven to be the handsomest evergreen. 



Why have we praised both the White Pine and 

 the White Spruce as the best evergreens? The 

 White Pine is a broad-shouldered, old giant, stretch- 

 ing his arms widely against the sky. The White 

 Spruce, with her narrow, neat skirts, will make the 

 world just as happy and beautiful and occupy less 

 space. The White Spruce is a symmetrical tree, 

 with a conical head. The numerous branchlets keep 

 it always dense and, therefore, it is sure to remain 

 an efficient screen and windbreak, because the lower 

 branches are retained as long as the tree has suffi- 

 cient space. The bluish green, glaucous foliage makes 

 ts appearance always cheerful and bright. A group 

 of them is never gloomy. We have never heard any 

 one criticise its appearance or its adaptibility to 

 this region. 



The Norway Spruce has seme decided faults 

 when old, being open, ragged and sometimes dismal. 



