336 Lake Maxinkuckee, Physical and Biological Survey 



places is the pruning carried out to such perfection as near Ply- 

 mouth, Indiana. 



There the citizens had their own delightful wild park, between 

 the millrace and the river, below the most charming and pic- 

 turesque dam, and above the picturesque old water mill and by the 

 big fountain. 



Across the millrace, on the townward side, the cows kept their 

 formal garden a smooth green velvety lawn billowy with the un- 

 dulations of the ground, a patriarchal old hawtree in the midst and 

 around about, scattered over the whole pasture, the numerous 

 progeny of younger trees. 



The hand of no gardener ever clipped box or privet with more 

 primness or precision than the cattle had trimmed some of the 

 trees; here was a perfect pyramid, clipped to a sharp point, the 

 repeatedly trimmed branches so dense they could hardly be sepa- 

 rated by the hand, all covered with new rosy leaves; there was a 

 perfectly rounded dome, and yonder a clump of three or four form- 

 ing an irregular but well trimmed group. One tree, trimmed into 

 a perfect pyramid or rather cone, had escaped from the cattle at 

 the very tip and formed a tall slender sapling with the skirt about 

 its base. A row of young haw trees with a few cattle on each side 

 would soon form a pretty perfect hedge without any trimming by 

 hands. It was very likely from the work of browsing cattle that 

 men first got their ideas of trimmed trees, and the haw was our 

 first hedge tree. 



So dense do these cow-trimmed trees grow that we have been 

 informed that one was observed in New York which bees had been 

 using for a hive, having built the thick tangle full of comb and 

 honey. 



FAMILY 77. AMYGDALACE^. PEACH FAMILY 



424. WILD RED PLUM 



PRUNUS AMERICANA Marsh. 



Not especially common; one tree south of the lake, a tree east 

 of Lakeview hotel, and a number northeast of the lake on hill- 

 sides and gullies. In flower May 3, 1901. The fruit here is of 

 little value, being small in size and infested by the curculio. 



425. CHOKE CHERRY 



PADUS NANA (Du Roi) Roemer 



Not common ; a few low bushes on the bluff at the lake shore by 

 Murray's. It attained a height only of three or four feet. Leafing 



