296 TREES. 



same in their own grounds ; and thus this tree or plant would soon 

 become widely distributed about the whole adjacent country. An- 

 other season, still another desirable tree or plant might be taken in 

 hund, -and when ready for home planting, might be scattered broad- 

 cast among those who desire to possess it, and so the labor of love 

 iriight go on as convenience dictated, till the' greater part of the gar- 

 den*, however small, within a considerable circumference, would con- 

 tain at least several of the most valuable, useful, and oriiameiital 

 trees and- shrubs for the climate. ' • 



The second means is hy lOfiat the nursery men may do. 



We are very well aware that the first thought which will cross 

 the mind of a selfish and narrow-minded nurseryman, (if any such 

 read the foregoing paragraph,) is that suCh a cotrse of gratuitous 

 distributio'n of good plants, on the part of private persons,- will 

 speedily, ruin his -business. ' But he was never more greatly 

 mistaken, as both observation and reason will convince' him. ' Who 

 are the nurseryman's best ■ custbmers? That class of men who 

 have long owned a garden, whether it be half a rood or many 

 acres, who have never planted trees — or, if' any, have but those not 

 worth planting ? Not at all. His best customers are tih.ose who 

 have formed a' taste for trees by planting them, and who, having 

 got a taste for improving, are seldom idle in the matter, and keep 

 pretty regular accounts with the .dealers in trees; If you cannot 

 get a person who thinks he has but little time 'pr taste for improving 

 his place to buy trees, and he will accept a plant, ot'ar fruit-tree," or 

 a shade-tree,, now and then," from a' neighbor whom he knows to' be 

 " curious in such things " — ^by all means, we say to the nursery- 

 man, encourage him to plant at any rate and all rates. 



If that man's tree turns out to his satisfaction, he is an amateur, 

 oUe only beginning to pick^the shell, to 'be sure — but an amateur 

 full fledged by-and-by. If h« once gets a taste for gardening down- 

 right — ^if the flaVor of his o'Wii rareripes touch his palate but once, 

 as something quite different from wW he has always, like a con- 

 tented, ignorant' donkey, bought in the market — ^if his Malmaison' 

 , rose, radiant -with the. sentiment of the best of French women; and 

 the loveliness of intrinsic biid-beauty once touches his hitherto dull 

 eyes, so that, the scales of his blindness to the fact, that one rose 



