In the " Ramble " — Fourth Excursion 



is more luxuriant and effective. Unfortunately neither 

 the Scotch nor the Austrian pines thrive very well in 

 these grounds, and the former in many cases are so lean 

 and scraggly that it is a wonder they are tolerated. 

 Something should be done, and done quickly, for a 

 poor tree is worse than none. The European yew 

 (^Taxus baccata) is in much the same evil plight, and 

 not one of the many specimens I have seen is a credit 

 to the place. 



It sometimes seems as if nature had put before us a 

 number of almost identical forms just to pique our curi- 

 osity and tempt investigation, to find out exactly what 

 she means by each of them. And as soon as we put in 

 the entering wedge of inquiry, how those similar forms 

 instantly begin to separate, till they stand apart in such 

 clear distinctiveness that we wonder we could ever have 

 been so stupid as to fail to see their individualities. 

 And when we hear a liberally educated man make a 

 random allusion to pines and spruces, that shows that 

 he could not, for the life of him, tell them apart, we 

 only smile commiseratingly and say to ourselves, " Poor 

 man, you can see, readily enough, the difference of 

 Greek and Latin roots, and how can you be so blind as 

 not to know a pine from a hemlock ? ' ' 



It is singular that the evergreen species which we 

 perhaps regard most indifferently, seldom planting it for 

 ornament, and usually with dubious results — the white 

 or Weymouth pine (JP. strobus) — at its best estate is the 

 most majestic and imposing of all our Eastern trees. 

 Comparatively few have seen it in perfection ; but its 

 broad sweep of huge horizontal shelving branches and 

 125 



