Cboice threes anb Sbrubs 317 



have in some cases a decided advantage of their own. 

 The Lombardy poplar, or better still the white-stemmed 

 form {Populus alba Bolleana), with its narrow pyra- 

 midal growth has a distinct value for its colour as well 

 as shape in the landscape, rising from the midst of other 

 foliage. Employed as it often is, singly, or in lines, 

 alongside a building, or in hedge effects bounding a 

 garden or roadway, it is not satisfactory. The lower 

 portions are, doubtless, apt to become unsightly, but 

 a little pruning, intelligently and occasionally applied, 

 will enable its towering form to show out from the 

 general mass of foliage on the lawn for many years in 

 the most attractive manner. 



Something should be said for the oaks, for much can 

 be said against them on account of their slow growth 

 and generally crooked stems and tendency to failure 

 in transplanting. All this may be said, and yet after 

 all there is no family Uke the oaks. They are kings 

 among northern trees. There is the white oak! 

 What is there among trees like some specimens to be 

 seen along roadsides throughout the country? Summer 

 and autumn and winter all the oaks stand for the very 

 ideal of strength and beauty, white oak, red oak, scarlet 

 oak, pin oak, black oak, willow oak. They should be 

 seen to appreciate them, for instance in Flushing, Long 

 Island, near New York, the home of fine trees, where 

 some of the avenues are lined with oaks. Look at those 

 great pin oaks on Bowne Avenue, fifty or sixty feet high, 

 with drooping shining foliage and trunks Hke masts of 

 a ship black with age. 



