268 OUR WOODLAND TREES. 
—just the blending of the two that makes our 
dwelling-places town and yet country. 
Some of our English towns are very beautiful ; 
but most of them—the towns we mean and not 
their surroundings—are very dismal and treeless. 
Why may not this be altered? A graceful and 
charming writer in The Quarterly Review for July, 
1876, concludes a loving dissertation on ‘ Orna- 
mental and useful Tree-planting,’ by remarking, 
that, ‘ In earnest, matter-of-fact England, a hobby 
retains its favour and prestige all the more per- 
manently, if it combines advantage and utility 
with more esthetic and sensuous attractions,’ 
and by expressing a hope that his plea for Tree-cul- 
ture may ‘stimulate a redoubled zeal in planters, 
great and small, public and private, and such a 
fashion for planting both deciduous and coniferous 
Trees as may wax stronger and stronger, and more 
deeply rooted continually,— 
“Till Albion smile, 
One ample theatre of sylvan grace.” 
Who can doubt the advantage and utility of 
Tree-planting in our towns? How common, yet 
