Planting, S)*c., of Ornamental Trees. 15 



Obituary. 



Death has been busy among our eminent agricultural and 

 horticultural writers. Last year we recorded the deaths of 

 General Dearborn, Governor Hill, Mr. Skinner, and S. W. 

 Cole ; and we now have to add those of A. J. Downing, and 

 Prof. J. P. Norton. Mr. Downing's was a sad death, and his 

 loss leaves a void in the horticultural world which it will be 

 found difficult to fill. Prof. Norton's death will be no less 

 felt by all who take the least interest in agricultural im- 

 provement. As a scientific writer on agriculture he had no 

 equal in the country ; and had his life been spared, he would 

 by his experiments and writings, have contributed much to 

 our stock of agricultural knowledge. 



Art. II. On the Planting and Disposition of Ornamental 

 Trees around Private Residences. By R. B. L. 



The expression of trees and shrubs which may be planted 

 to adorn the grounds around a villa residence, depends nearly 

 as much upon their disposition as upon their individual rar- 

 ity or their singularity of shape and the "outlines of their 

 form. All trees and shrubs when they have attained their 

 full size, are possessed of some particular qualities not com- 

 mon to others : Thus the cedar, a tree very abundant on 

 sterile and sandy ground, throughout most of the New Eng- 

 land States, has a uniform unchangeable character, solemn 

 and sombre in its appearance, and tending to fill the mind 

 Avith emotions of melancholy and gloom ; nor does it lose 

 any of its dismal dreariness even when standing in the shrub- 

 bery among the most interesting exotics ; its monotonous and 

 unchanging color and shape is rather increased than dimin- 

 ished by the contrast. These circumstances have made this 

 tree very unpopular with planters of taste, and hence we find 

 it almost excluded from the neat shrubberies of villa resi- 

 dences. Notwithstanding the many faults which we hear 



