CHAPTER XVI 

 TREES 



ANY real estate dealer can bear witness to the 

 depth and universality of the human love for 

 trees. A country house without trees is almost 

 unthinkable certainly unsellable; and when Nature 

 has not provided arboreal adornment, the builder at 

 once sets out to supply the deficiency. Sometimes, to 

 be sure, he uses but little judgment in so doing, sticking 

 Colorado blue spruces in the middle of New England 

 lawns or messing other exotics into clumps which 

 Nature would disdain; but his instinct is sound, if his 

 taste is not. He must have trees about his dwelling. 

 Some men demand them for architectural effect, to 

 frame the house, to back the borders, to make those 

 masses of shadow at the end of a lawn or vista which are 

 essential to a successful garden. A garden without 

 trees, in fact, is even more depressing than a land 

 without hills. Some men, again, demand trees for their 

 protection from the prying world or the winter wind, 

 some for their shade, some, perhaps, just for their mute 

 friendliness. But at bottom, I believe, all these 

 reasons are the same. A man demands trees about his 



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