308 TREES. 



The principle which would govern us, if we were planting the 

 streets of rural towns, is this : Select the finest indigenous tree or 

 trees ; such as the soil and climate of the place will bring to the 

 highest perfection. Thus, if it were a neighborhood where the elm 

 flourished peculiarly well, or the maple, or the beech, we would 

 directly adopt the tree indicated. We would then, in time, succeed 

 in producing the finest possible specimens of the species selected : 

 while, if we adopted, for the sake of fashion or novelty, a foreign 

 tree, we should probably only succeed in getting poor and meagre 

 specimens. 



It is because this principle has been, perhaps accidentally, pur- 

 sued, that the villages of New England are so celebrated for their 

 sylvan charms. The* elm is, we think, nowhere seen in more ma- 

 jesty, greater luxuriance, or richer beauty, than in the valley of the 

 Connecticut ; and it is because the soil is so truly congenial to it, 

 that the elm-adorned streets of the villages there, elicit so much ad- 

 miration. They are not only well planted with trees but with a 

 kind of tree which attains its greatest perfection there. Who can 

 forget the fine lines of the sugar-maple, in Stockbridge, Massachu- 

 setts ? . They are in our eyes the rural glory of the place. The soil 

 there is their own, and they have attained a beautiful symmetry 

 and development. Yet if, instead of maples, poplars or willows 

 had been planted, how marked would have been the difference of 

 effect. 



There are no grander or more superb trees, than our American 

 oaks. Those who know them only as they grow in the midst, or 

 on the skirts of a thick forest, have no proper notion of their dignity 

 and beauty, when planted and grown in an avenue, or where they 

 have full space to develop. Now, there are many districts where 

 the native luxuriance of the oak woods, points out the perfect adap- 

 tation of the soil for this tree. If we mistake not, such is the case 

 where that charming rural town in this State, Canandaigua, stands. 

 Yet, we confess we were not a little pained, in walking through the 

 streets of Canandaigua, the past season, to find them mainly lined 

 with that comparatively meagre tree, the locust. How much finer 

 and more imposing, for the long principal street of Canandaigua, 



