Trees 143 



off his hands, propagated a stock from them, and introduced to the 

 Western world Hall's magnolia (M. stellatd), the earliest showy 

 flower we have and one of the loveliest. This low-growing bush- 

 like tree must not be confused with the Yulan magnolia (M. con- 

 spicua), whose large pure white cups are set on the leafless branches 

 of a tree that sometimes attains the height of thirty feet. It also 

 blooms in early spring. Against a background of evergreens, 

 where all trees that flower before their leaves come show to the best 

 advantage, these magnolias are especially beautiful. Even the 

 peculiar purplish pink of the Judas tree, not a lovely colour of 

 itself, almost acquires charm if backed by hemlocks. So exquisite 

 are the hybrid varieties of flowering fruit trees the cherry, peach, 

 and crab apple, whose every twig is a garland and whose masses 

 of pink and white bloom most adequately express the exuberant 

 beauty of spring that no one with a dollar to invest in pure joy 

 would forego one of them. "Sure ye can't see the tree fur the 

 flowers on it," said an Irish gardener of Professor Sargent's 

 favourite flowering crab. 



If you would attract birds to your grounds, plant the service 

 berry (Amelanchier) that happily diverts them from the strawberry 

 beds in June; the Russian mulberry, whose cloying sweet fruit 

 they have the bad taste to like better, perhaps, than any other; the 

 fleecy white-flowered, bird-cherry tree, for whose racemes of blackish 

 bitter little pills flocks of cedar-birds, especially, will travel many 

 miles; the spiny, large leaved Hercules club (Aralia spinosa) 

 sought by the hungry juncos as soon as they arrive from the North; 

 the red-berried dogwood and hawthorns, whose flowers one would 

 not willingly forego in any case. 



How to make the best use of trees with variegated, weeping 

 ind freakish foliage is one of the most difficult planting problems, 



