V. 



SHADE-TKEES IN CITIES. 



August^ 1852. 



" T\OWN with the ailanthus ! " is the cry we hear on all sides, 

 JL/ town and country, now that this " tree of heaven " (as 

 the catalogues used alluringly to call it) has penetrated all parts of 

 the Union, and begins to show its true character. Down with the 

 ailanthus ! " Its blossoms smell so disagreeably that my family are 

 made ill by it," says an oltt resident on one of the squares in New- 

 York, where it is the only shade for fifty contiguous houses. " We 

 must positively go to Newport, papa, to escape these horrible ailan- 

 thuses," exclaim numberless young ladies, who find that even their 

 best Jean Maria Farina, affords no permanent relief, since their 

 front parlors have become so celestially embowered. " The vile tree 

 comes up all over my garden," say fifty owners of suburban lots who 

 have foolishly been tempted into bordering the outside of their 

 " yards " with it having been told that it grows so " surprising fast." 

 "It has ruined my lawn for fifty feet all round each tree," say the 

 country gentlemen, who, seduced by the oriental beauty of its foli- 

 age, have also been busy for years dotting it in open places, here 

 and there, in their pleasure-grounds. In some of the cities south- 

 ward, the authorities, taking the matter more seriously, have voted 

 the entire downfall of the whole species, and the Herods who wield 

 the besom of sylvan destruction, have probably made a clean sweep 

 of the first born of celestials, in more towns than one south of Mason 

 and Dixon's line this season. 



Although we think there is picturesqueness in the free and luxu- 



