ON PLANTING SHADE-TREES. 301 



of houses in all these villages, that boast their pianos, while the last 

 Paris fashions are worn in the parlors, and the freshest periodical 

 literature of both sides of the Atlantic fills the centre-tables. But 

 while the comfort and good looks of the individual are sufficiently 

 cared for, the comfort and good looks of the town are sadly neg- 

 lected. Our education here stops short of New England. We are 

 slow to feel that the character of the inhabitants is always, in some 

 degree, indicated by the appearance of the town. It is, unluckily, 

 no one's especial business to ornament the streets. No one feels it 

 a reproach to himself, that verdure and beauty do not hang like rich 

 curtains over the street in which he lives. And thus a whole village 

 or town goes on from year to year, in a shameless state of public 

 nudity and neglect, because no one feels it his particular duty to 

 persuade his neighbors to join him in making the town in which he 

 lives a gem of rural beauty, instead of a sorry collection of unin- 

 teresting houses. 



It is the frequent apology of intelligent persons who live in such 

 places, and are more alive to this glaring defect than the majority, 

 that it is impossible for them to do any thing alone, and their neigh- 

 bors care nothing about it. 



One of the finest refutations of this kind of delusion exists in 

 New Haven. All over the Union, this town is known as the " City 

 of Elms." The stranger always pauses, and bears tribute to the 

 taste of its inhabitants, while he walks beneath the grateful shade 

 of its lofty rows of trees. Yet a large part of the finest of these 

 trees were planted, and the whole of the spirit which they have in- 

 spired, was awakened by one person Mr. Hillhouse. He lived 

 long enough to see fair and lofty aisles of verdure, where, before, 

 were only rows of brick or wooden houses ; and, we doubt not, he 

 enjoyed a purer satisfaction than many great conquerors who have 

 died with the honors of capturing kingdoms, and demolishing a 

 hundred cities. 



Let no person, therefore, delay planting shade-trees himself, 

 or persuading his neighbors to do the same. Wherever a village 

 contains half a dozen persons zealous in this excellent work of 

 adorning the country at large, let them form a society and make 

 proselytes of those who are slow to be moved otherwise. A public 



