December ii, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



591 



he stiff line of color between the soft green masses above 

 and the soft green expanse below. Not only on the path side 

 of the shrubberies, however, but even on the lawn side this 

 feature is constantly introduced ; and we see the same thing 

 to-day almost everywhere in France and England, and in pri- 

 vate as well as in public gardens. Fortunately the fashion has 

 not yet been taken up in America, and it is to be hoped that it 

 will never cross the sea. 



As the Pare Monceau was designed it was a spot of tlie 

 utmost unity of effect, restfulness, gracefulness and charm. 

 There are a score of spots within its borders from which 

 might be obtained vistas of sloping greensward and feathery 

 shrubbery and overarching tree-tops that could not be sur- 

 passed for harmony and loveliness in any park in the world ; 

 and the aspect of breadth and openness secured in so small an 

 area, with so entire a concealment of the surrounding streets, 

 must have seemed indeed a triumph of art. The practiced eye 

 can still read these cliarms under the disfigurements of to-day; 

 but it reads them with perpetual irritation and protest; for 

 there is no standpoint whence the prospect in every direction 

 is not marred by obtrusive spots, lines and solid masses of 

 color, and by inharmonious plant forms; not a nook so rural 

 that the spade of the potter-out has respected it; not a fair 

 stretch of lawn which is not broken and speckled with "speci- 

 men " plants of a dozen sorts; not a shrubbery, and scarcely a 

 conspicuous tree, which is allowed to spring naturally from the 

 turf at its base. The most exacting landscape-painter miglit 

 once have found many subjects for his pencil here in the heart 

 of Paris ; the least exacting could not paint a bit of the Pare 

 Monceau to-day without omitting a hundi'ed offensive details. 

 The effect is all the worse because nothing needs to be planted, 

 nothing permanent needs to be altered. The simple rooting 

 out of a myriad ephemeral plants woLild at once restore the 

 domain to perfect beauty. 



The River Birch. 



THE charm of the banks of many streams in the United 

 States is due in large part to the presence of the 

 River Birch, which graces them with its peculiar beauty, 

 and which is not only one of the most .beautiful trees of 

 the American forest, but one of the most interesting. It is 

 interesting because of all the Birches, a family of trees 

 widely scattered over all the colder parts of the northern 

 hemisphere, it is the only one which grows in a warm 

 climate. There are Birches, perhaps, which grow nearer 

 to the equator than our River Birch, lilce some of the East 

 Indian species, but these are found at great elevations only 

 on high mountains, and, therefore, in boreal climates, 

 while the River Birch flourishes in the damp, semi-tropical 

 lowlands of Florida, Louisiana and eastern Texas. It is 

 peculiar, too, among Birches in the season of the year 

 when its seeds ripen. The seeds of other Birches ripen in 

 the autumn, fall to the ground, and do not germinate until 

 the following spring. The seeds of the River Birch mature 

 in June, or often earlier in the southern states, and germi- 

 nate at once as soon as they reach the ground ; and the 

 young seedlings are often a foot or more high before the 

 coming of cold weather stops their growth. 



Several of our trees which grow in wet places naturally 

 have acquired this habit of early ripening of the seed. It 

 is the habit of nearly all the Elms, and of the Poplars, and 

 of the Red and White Maples, although the other Maples, 

 which grow naturally on dry ground, do not ripen their 

 seed until late in the autumn. This early ripening of the 

 seeds of certain species only of particular genera can be 

 accounted for by the situation in which such trees grow. 

 The River Birch is found on the borders of streams or 

 swamps which are covered often with water to a depth of 

 several feet during a part of every year. The Red Maple 

 and the Silver Maple and the Poplars grow only in swamps 

 or other wet places. If the seed of these trees ripened 

 late in the autumn, when streams and swamps are full, they 

 would fall into the water and would be washed away or 

 destroyed, and this particular species of tree would have 

 been exterminated gradually ; but falling as they do in 

 early summer, when the soil which receives them is 

 neither covered by water nor dry and baked by the droughts 



of the hot months, they are placed in the most favorable 

 situation possible for germination ; and the young plants 

 are able to acquire sufficient height and strength before 

 autumn to bear, with a good chance of survival, the effect 

 of being flooded during their first winter. 



There is an interesting fact, too, and one which is not 

 easy to explain, connected with the geographical distribu- 

 tion of the River Birch. It is found on the banks of the 

 Merrimack and of the Spicket Rivers in north-eastern ]\Ias- 

 sachusetts. Here it grows luxuriantly and abundantly, 

 but it grows nowhere else in New England, or anywhere 

 else as far north as Massachusetts. It grows on the banks 

 of one small stream on Long Island, but nowhere else in 

 New York, and it only becomes common in the lower part 

 of New Jersey ; but from southern New Jersey to Iowa on 

 the west, and to northern Florida and eastern Texas on 

 the south, it occupies the banks of almost every stream, 

 excepting those in the high Alleghany Mountains, which 

 have a gravelly bed and banks which are not marshy. 

 There is no tree so rare and local in New England and the 

 northern states, and none in the particular situations it 

 selects more common in the middle and southern states. 



The River Birch is a tall tree, eighty or ninety feet high 

 when it is at its best, with a ponderous trunk three or f(jur 

 feet in diameter. The bark on the trunks of old trees is 

 thick, dark brown and deeply furrowed, while that on 

 young trees, with a trunk diameter of not over ten or twelve 

 inches, and on the branches, is light red or cinnamon col- 

 ored, dividing readily into thin, transparent, papery layers. 

 It is this color of the bark of the branches, peculiar to this 

 species, which has caused it to be called also the Red Birch, 

 although by a curious misapplication of names this tree 

 is known to botanists as Beiula ?ngra. The ultimate divi- 

 sions of the branches, as is the case with all Birches, are 

 slender, pendulous and graceful, giving to this tree in wm- 

 ter that light and feathery appearance which makes it such 

 an attractive object at this season of the year, as it pushes 

 its branches out over some deep, swift flowing stream. 

 The leaves of the River Birch are large, sharply toothed 

 and pointed ; they are bright and lustrous on the upper 

 surface and pale on the lower, and in autumn turn bright 

 yellow before they fall from the branches. 



The wood produced by the River Birch is light and 

 strong ; it is easy to work, of good color, and well suited 

 for furniture of the best quality, which has of late years 

 been made from it in large quantities in some parts of the 

 country. As an ornamental tree for the decoration of 

 parks, the River Birch has much to recommend it. It 

 grows rapidl}' when removed from the banks of its native 

 streams to drier soil, and ma)' be depended on to develop 

 in a short time into one of the most beautiful of deciduous 

 trees. It is not a common tree, however, in cultivation, in 

 spite of the fact that it was one of the first American trees 

 cultivated in Europe, having been planted in England as 

 early as 1736, and its value and beauty are not known or 

 appreciated by the present generation of tree-planters. 

 Large specimens may be seen occasionally in some of 

 the old European parks, especially in those of northern 

 Germany ; but it is practically unknown in those of this 

 country or of England ; and yet there is no tree better 

 suited to place on the borders of ornamental water, and 

 there is none which, in such a position, is capable of add- 

 ing more grace and beauty to the landscape. 



The picture of the group of River Birches in Massachu- 

 setts in winter, which appears on page 593 of this issue, 

 shows the beauty of this tree at this season of the year, 

 and serves to illustrate the fact, already stated on another 

 page of this issue, that trees are as beautiful in the eyes of 

 the real lover of trees in winter as they are in summer, and 

 that there is much to learn by studying them at this season 

 of the year, when their whole anatomy is made clear by the 

 absence of their leaves. 



Our illustration is prepared from a photograj))! by Dr. 

 William Herbert Rollins, of Boston, to whom we are in- 

 debted for permission to reproduce it. C. S. S. 



