SHADE-TBEES-IN CITIES. 315 



maxim <ihat the Turks have — " Ast no one in the bazaar to praise 

 his own goods " To tbe eyes of the nurserymen a crop of ailan- 

 thnses and abeles is " a pasture in th6 valley of sweet waters." But 

 go to an old homestead,' where th^ have become naturalized, and 

 you will find that, there is a bitter aftertaste about the experience of 

 the unfortunate possessor of these sylvan treasures of a far-off 

 country.^ 



The planting intelligence must therefore increase, if we would 

 fill our grounds and shade our streets with really valuable, ornamen- 

 tal trees. The nurserymen will naturally raise what is in demand, 

 ■said if but ten customers offer in five years for the overcup oak, 

 while fifty come of a day for the allanthus, the latter will be culti- 

 vated as a matter of course. 



The (question immediately arises, what shall we use instead of 

 the condemned trees ? What, especiallyj shall we use in. the streets 

 of cities? Many — ^nay, the majority' of shade-trees — clean and 

 beautiful in the cpuntay — are so infested with womjs and insects in 

 towns as to be worse than useless. The sycamore has failed, the 

 linden is devoured, the elm is preyed upon by insects. We have 

 -rushed intp the arms of the Tartar, partly out of fright,4o escape 

 the armies of caterpillars and cankerworms that have taken posses- 

 sion of better trees ! 



Take refuge, friends, in the American maples. Clean, sweet, 

 coolj and umbrageous, are the maple%; and, much vaunted as aOan- 

 thuses and poplars^e, for their lightning growth, takeom- word for 

 it, that it is only a good* gp-off at the start. A maple at twenty years ' 

 — ror even at ten, if the soil is favorable,. will be much the finer and 

 larger tree. ■ No tree transplants more readily— none adapts itself 

 more easily to the soil, than the maple. For light soils, and the 

 ■milder parts of the Union, say the Middle and Western States, the 

 ^Iver maple, with drooping branch^, is at once the best alid most 

 gracefal of street trees. For the North and East, the soft maple and 



* We may as well add for th'ie benefit of the novice, the advice to shim 

 all trees that are universally propagated by suckers. It is "a worse inherit- 

 ance for a tree than drunkenness for a child, and more difficult to eradicate. 

 'Even ailanthuaes and^poplars /j'oot seerf have tolerably respectable habits 

 as regards radical things. 



