340 Trees ; their General Character and Advantages. 



its native Scotland, there is no tree which assumes so great 

 or so pleasing a variety of character." 



We need not say more to satisfy all planters that it is a 

 most beautiful tree. That it resists the ravages of insects 

 which despoil our native and other elms of their entire beauty 

 we have given the experience of many years, and we can 

 fully recommend it to all who are planting trees as one of the 

 best which can be found. 



Art. II. Trees ; — their General Character and Advantages. 

 By Wilson Flagg. 



Every careful observer of nature must have remarked that 

 there is an endless variety in the forms and foliage of trees, 

 and these differences and their expression have, from the ear- 

 liest ages, been a favorite study for the painter and the poet. 

 The Psalmist compares the godly man to "a tree that is 

 planted by rivers of water, whose leaf shall not wither," see- 

 ing in the stateliness and beauty of such a tree, an emblem 

 of the nobler virtues of the human heart. Trees are distin- 

 guished from one another by their grandeur or by their ele- 

 gance ; by their primness or by their grace ; by the stiffness 

 of their branches and foliage, or by their waving and tremu- 

 lous motions. Some stand forth as if in defiance of the 

 wind and storm ; others, with long drooping branches, find 

 their security in bending to the gale, like the slender grasses 

 at their roots. 



Although a perfect tree, of any species, is regular and sym- 

 metrical in its outlines, there are but a few in which this 

 symmetry prevails in the arrangement of their branches. 

 The deciduous trees generally send out their branches, at 

 irregular distances, and at different angles. In the evergreens 

 of the fir tribe the branches are given out in whorls, leaving 

 spaces between each whorl either naked or covered only with 

 a few abortive and inconspicuous shoots. In every perfect 

 tree of this tribe there is a single trunk that grows undivided 



