316 fREES. 



tKe sugar maple. K any one wi'slies to know the glory and teauty 

 of the sugar maple as a 'street tree, let him make a pilgrimage to' 

 Stookbiidge, in Massachusetts ! If he desires' td study the silv6^ 

 mapfe, thfere is no better school than Burlingbn, New Jersey. 

 These are two towns ahnost wholly planted with these American 

 trees— of tihe' sylvan adomings of which any "native" may *ell he 

 proud. The inhabitants neither have to abandon their front rooms 

 from "the smell," nor lose the use of their back yards 'Ta^" the 

 suckers." And whoever plants .either of these three maples, may 

 feel sure that he is earnmg' the thanks instead of the reproaches of 

 posterity. 



The most beautifid and stately of all' trees for an avenue — and 

 especially for an avenue street in to\vn— ^is ; an American tree that ' 

 one rarely sees plaiited in' Americaf'^never, that we remember, in 

 any public street. We mean the tulip-tree, or liriodendron. "What 

 can be more beautiful than its trunk — finely proportioned, and 

 smooth as a Grecian column ? . What more artistic than its Jeaf-^ 

 out like an arabesque in a Moorish palace<? What more clean and 

 lustrous than its tuffs of foliage— dark-green,, and rich as deeped i' 

 emerald ? What niore lily-like and specious ' than its blossoms — 

 -golden and brotize.shaded ? and what fairer and more queenly than 

 its whole figure — stately and regal as that of Zenobia ? Fbr'a parTs. 

 tree, to spread oh every side, it is unrivalled, growing a hundred and 

 liiirty feet highv and spreading into the finest symmetry of outline-f 

 I*or a street tree', its columnar st6m, beautiful e^er with or withoiil 

 ' branches^-with a low head or a high head-^foHage over the second 

 story or under it — ^js precisely what i&most needed.- A very spread- 

 ing tree,, like the elm, is always somewhat out of place in town, be- 

 cause its natural habit is to, extend itself laterally. A tre6 -with, the 

 habit of the tulip, lifts itself into the finest pyramids of foliage, ex- 

 actly suited to the usual width of town streets — and thus embel- 

 lishes and shades, without darkening and incumbering them. Be- 



* Though there are grand avenues of it in the royal parks of Germany 

 -^raised from American s$ed. 



f At 'Wakefield, the fine country-seat of the K^her faniily, near Phila- 

 delphia, are several tulip-tvees on the la-«m, over one hundred feet high, 

 and three to six feet in diametcir. 



