312 TREES. 



riant foliage of the ailanthus, we shall see its downfall without a 

 word to save it. We look upon it as an usurper in rather bad odor 

 at home, which has come over to this land of liberty, under the 

 garb of utility,* to make foul the air, with its pestilent breath, and 

 devour the soil, with its intermeddling roots a tree that has the 

 fair outside and the treacherous heart of the Asiatics, and that has 

 played us so many tricks, that we find we have caught a Tartar 

 which it requires something more than a Chinese wall to confine 

 within limits. 



Down with the ailanthus ! therefore, we cry with the populace. 

 But we have reasons beside theirs, and now that the favorite has 

 fallen out of favor with the sovereigns, we may take the opportunity 

 to preach a funeral sermon over its remains, that shall not, like so 

 many funeral sermons, be a bath of oblivion-waters to wash out all 

 memory of its vices. For if the Tartar is not laid violent hands 

 upon, and kept under close watch, even after the spirit has gone out 

 of the old trunk, and the coroner is satisfied that he has come to a 

 violent end lo, we shall have him upon us tenfold in the shape of 

 suckers innumerable little Tartars that will beget a new dynasty, 

 and overrun our grounds and gardens again, without mercy. 



The vices of the ailanthus the incurable vices of the by-gone 

 favorite then, are twofold. In the first place, it smells horribly, 

 both in leaf and flower and instead of sweetening and purifying 

 the air, fills it with a heavy, sickening odor ; f in the second place, 

 it suckers abominably, and thereby overruns, appropriates, and re- 

 duces to beggary, all the soil of every open piece of ground where 

 it is planted. These are the mortifications which every body feels 

 sooner or later, who has been sedr.ced by the luxuriant outstretched 

 welcome of its smooth round arms, and the waving and beckoning 

 of its graceful plumes, into giving it a place in their home circle. 

 For a few years, while the tree is growing, it has, to be sure, a fair 



* The ailanthus, though originally from China, was first introduced into 

 this country from Europe, as the "Tanner's sumac" but the mistake was 

 soon discovered, and its rapid growth made it a favorite with planters. 



f Two acquaintances of ours, in a house in the upper part of the city 

 of New- York, are regularly driven out by the ailanthus malaria every 



