71 



dignity and beauty of Chestnut street indicate tiie 

 minds, mostly broadened by foreign travel, of the men 

 who returned to Salem to build beautiful homes. As a 

 more recent illustration, certain portions of Bridge 

 street, and the streets turning from it towards Collins 

 Cove, would to-day be uninteresting, hot and dusty had 

 not our venerable bank officer and botanist, Mr. George 

 D. Phippen, made them beautiful by planting trees in 

 them at his own expense. And all these men who 

 were amateur scientists, horticulturists, and lovers of 

 flowers and nature, are nearly all men noted for their 

 enterprise and success in business pursuits. They 

 have been in fact our really "practical men." 



The birches are trees which are not generally seen 

 in our streets, but are more appropriately planted in 

 yards and larger grounds. 



The black or sweet birch (Betula lenta) grows in 

 Danvers, and more abundantly in the northern portions 

 of the county than in the southern. 



The yellow birch (Betula lutea), with its dingy 

 yellowish white and ever peeling bark, is fi'equently 

 found on the outskirts of the city. There are several 

 trees by the roadside in the low ground before reaching 

 the "floating bridge" on the turnpike, and a number of 

 trees may be seen in the grounds of the estates opposite 

 Pride's Crossing, Beverly. It also grows along Brim- 

 ble avenue, Beverly, and larger trees are found in the 

 woods on the road from Manchester to Essex. 



The common white birch, or gray birch as it is some- 

 times called (Betula populifolia) , is a graceful but 

 never large tree, everywhere met with in pastures and 

 by roadsides, the first tree to follow the general clearing 

 up of woodlands, or a fire. A very pretty row of 



