SHADE-TREES IN CITIES. 315 



maxim that the Turks have " Ask no one in the bazaar to praise 

 his own goods." To the eyes of the nurserymen a crop of ailan- 

 thuses and abeles is " a pasture in the valley of sweet waters." But 

 go to an old homestead, where they have become naturalized, and 

 you will find that there is a bitter aftertaste about the experience of 

 the unfortunate possessor of these sylvan treasures of a far-off 

 country.* 



The planting intelligence must therefore increase, if we would 

 fill our grounds and shade our streets with really valuable, ornamen- 

 tal trees. The nurserymen will naturally raise what is in demand, 

 and if but ten customers offer in five years for the overcup oak, 

 while fifty come of a day for the ailanthus, the latter will be culti- 

 vated as a matter of course. 



The question immediately arises, what shall we use instead of 

 the condemned trees ? What, especially, shall we use in the streets 

 of cities? Many nay, the majority of shade-trees clean and 

 beautiful in the country are so infested with worms and insects in 

 towns as to be worse than useless. The sycamore has failed, the 

 linden is devoured, the elm is preyed upon by insects. We have 

 rushed into the arms of the Tartar, partly out of fright, to escape 

 the armies of caterpillars and cankerworms that have taken posses- 

 sion of better trees ! 



Take refuge, friends, in the American maples. Clean, sweet, 

 cool, and umbrageous, are the maples ; and, much vaunted as ailan- 

 thuses and poplars are, for their lightning growth, take our word for 

 it, that it is only a good go-off at the start. A maple at twenty years 

 or even at ten, if the soil is favorable, will be much the finer and 

 larger tree. No tree transplants more readily none adapts itself 

 more easily to the soil, than the maple. For light soils, and the 

 milder parts of the Union, say the Middle and Western States, the 

 silver maple, with drooping branches, is at once the best and most 

 graceful of street trees. For the North and East, the soft maple and 



* We may as well add for the benefit of the novice, the advice to shun 

 all trees that are universally propagated by suckers. It is a worse inherit- 

 ance for a tree than drunkenness for a child, and more difficult to eradicate. 

 Even ailanthuses and poplars from seed have tolerably respectable habits 

 as regards radical things. 



