332 TREES. 



The BALSAM FIB (Picea balsamea), or, as it is often called, the 

 Balm of Gilead Fir, is a neat, dark green evergreen tree, perhaps 

 more generally employed for small grounds and plantations than any 

 other by our gardeners. In truth, it is better adapted to small gar- 

 dens, yards, or narrow lawns, than for landscape gardening on a 

 large scale, as its beauty is of a formal kind ; and though the tree 

 often grows to thirty or forty feet, its appearance is never more 

 pleasing than when it is from ten to fifteen or twenty feet high. 

 The dark green hue of its foliage, which is pretty constant at all 

 seasons, and the comparative ease with which it is transplanted, will 

 always commend it to the ornamental improver. But as a full 

 grown tree, it is not to be compared for a moment, to any one of the 

 three species of evergreens that we have already noticed ; since it 

 becomes stiff and formal as it grows old, instead of graceful or pictu- 

 resque, like the hemlock, white pine, or Norway spruce. Its chief 

 value is for shrubberies, small gardens, or courtyards, in a formal or 

 regular style. The facility of obtaining it, added to the excellent 

 color of its foliage, and the great hardiness of the plant, induce us to 

 give it a place among the four evergreens worthy of the universal 

 attention of our ornamental planters. 



The Arbor Vitce, so useful for hedges and screens, is, we find, so 



game ; and for this purpose, and also for the sake of its verdure during win- 

 ter, when planted among deciduous trees and cut down to within five or six 

 feet of the ground, it affords a very good and very beautiful undergrowth. 

 The Norway spruce bears the shears ; and as it is of rapid growth, it makes 

 excellent hedges for shelter in nursery gardens. Such hedges are not unfre- 

 quent in Switzerland, and also in Carpathia, and some parts of Baden and 

 Bavaria, In 1844, there were spruce hedges in some gentlemen's grounds 

 in the neighborhood of Moscow, between 30 feet and 40 feet high. At the 

 Whim (near Edinburgh), a Norway spruce hedge was planted in 1823 with 

 plants 10 feet high, put in 3 feet apart. The whole were cut down 5 feet, 

 and afterwards trimmed in a regular conical shape. The hedge, thus formed, 

 was first cut on Jan. 25, the year after planting ; and as the plants were 

 found to sustain no injury, about the end of that month has been chosen for 

 cutting it every year since. Every portion of this hedge is beautiful and 

 green ; and the annual growths are very short, giving the surface of this 

 hedge a fine, healthy appearance." [This is an excellent illustration of the 

 capacity of this tree for being sheared ; but good hedges are more easily and 

 better formed by using plants about 18 inches or 2 feet high.] 



