DECIDUOUS TREES. 441 



a large dense bush ; but, pruned by accident or 



design to a single stem, it forms one- of the most ^'°- '+^' 



beautiful and durable trees of the. third rank that 



can be planted — interesting and valuable for its 



sweet-scented- flowers in May, and for its fruit in 



autumn, which supplies food for some of the smaller 



birds during part of the winter., In hedges the 



hawthorn does not flower and fruit abundantly when 



closely and frequently clipped ; but when the hedges 



are only cut at the sides, so as to be kept within bounds, and the 



summits are left untouched, they flower and fruit as freely as when 



trained as separate trees. The plant lives a century or two, and 



there are examples of it between forty and fifty feet in height, 



with trunks three feet in diameter at one foot from the ground." 



It will not flourish in a wet, cold, or thin soil. 



The hawthorn may either be used as stocks for, or may be 

 grafted upon, not only all the other thorns, but upon apple and 

 pear trees. As an ornamental hedge-plant it is inferior in beauty 

 in this country to the arbor-vitae and hemlock, except in its blos- 

 soming time, and in strength to resist animals to the Osage orange. 



Sir Uvedale Price, one of the most distinguished of English 

 writers on landscape gardening, especially recommends the haw- 

 thorn to be used as a filling-in for a plantation of larger trees : " As 

 trees are frequently planted thick at first, with the intention of 

 thinning them afterwards ; and as this operation is almost always 

 neglected, no more large trees ought to be planted than are intended 

 finally to remain ; and the interstices should be filled up with haw- 

 thorns and other low shrubs and trees." The growth of the tree is 

 more rambling than that of our best native thorns, and its outer 

 branches, intercurving, and well covered either with flowers or 

 leaves, often convey the impression of trees composed of garlands, 

 blossoms, and leaves. The flowers are borne in greater profusion 

 than on our American thorn-trees, and sport into a variety of colors. 

 Fig. 147 is a portrait of a pair of hawthorns in the grounds of 

 Ellwanger & Barry, at Rochester, which, in their blooming season, 

 are remarkably pretty ; the one on the right being a mass oT double 

 white blossoms, and the one on the left nearly as crowded with 



