314 TREES. 



good taste oh ! that they knew and could understand the surpass- 

 ing beauty of our native shade-trees. More than forty species of oak 

 are there in North America (Great Britain has only two species 

 France only five), and we are richer in maples, elms, and ashes, 

 than any country in the old world. Tulip-trees and magnolias from 

 America, are the exotic glories of the princely grounds of Europe. 

 But (saving always the praiseworthy partiality in New England for 

 our elms and maples), who plants an American tree in America ? 

 And who, on the contrary, that has planted shade-trees at all in the 

 United States, for the last fifteen years, has not planted either ailan- 

 thuses or abele poplars ? We should like to see that discreet, sagacious 

 individual, who has escaped the national ecstasy for foreign suckers. 

 If he can be found, he is more deserving a gold medal from our 

 horticultural societies, than the grower of the most mammoth 

 pumpkin, or elephantine beet, that will garnish the cornucopia of 

 Pomona for 1852, 



In this confession of our sins of Commission in planting filthy 

 suckers, and omission in not planting clean natives we must lay 

 part of the burden at the door of the nurserymen. (It has been 

 found a convenient practice this shifting the responsibility ever 

 since the first trouble about trees in the Garden of Eden.) 



" Well ! then, if the nurserymen will raise ailanthuses and abeles 

 by the thousands," reply the planting community, " and telling us 

 nothing about pestilential odors and suckers, tell us a great deal 

 about 'rapid growth, immediate effect beauty of foliage rare 

 foreign trees,' and the like, it is not surprising that we plant what 

 turn out, after twenty years' trial, to be nuisances instead of embel- 

 lishments. It is the business of the nurserymen to supply planters 

 with the best trees. If they supply us with the worst, who sins the 

 most, the buyer or the seller of such stuff ?" 



Softly, good friends. It is the business of the nurserymen to 

 make a profit by raising trees. If you will pay just as much for a 

 poor tree, that can be raised in two years from a sucker, as a valua- 

 ble tree that requires four or five years, do you wonder that the nur- 

 serymen will raise 1 and sell you ailanthuses instead of oaks ? It is 

 the business (duty, at least) of the planter, to knowwhat he is about 

 to plant ; and though there are many honest traders, it is a good 



