268 LANDSCAPE GAEDENIN6. 



most evergreens by its flat foliage, composed of a great 

 number of scales closely imbricated, or overlaying each 

 other, which give the whole a compressed appearance. 

 The seeds are borne in a small cone, usually not more than 

 half an inch in length. 

 / This tree is extremely formal and regular in outline 

 / in almost every stage of growth ; generally assuming the 

 ' shape of an exact cone or pyramid of close foliage, of con- 

 siderable extent at the base, close to the ground, and nar- 

 rowing upwards to a sharp point. So regular is their 

 outline in many cases, when they are growing upon 

 favorable soils, that at a short distance they look as if they 

 had been subjected to the clipping-shears. The sameness 

 of its form precludes the employment of this evergreen in 

 so extensive a manner as most others ; that is, in inter- 

 m.ingling it promiscuously with other trees of less artificial 

 forms. But the Arbor Vitae, from this very regularity, is 

 well suited to support and accompany scenery when objects 

 of an avowedly artificial character predominate, as buildings, 

 etc., where it may be used with a very happy effect. There 

 is also no evergreen tree indigenous or introduced, which 

 will make a more effectual, close, and impervious screen 

 than this : and as it thrives well in almost every soil, moist, 

 dry, rich, or poor, we strongly recommend it whenever 

 such thickets are desirable. We have ourselves tried the 

 experiment with a hedge of it about 200 feet long, which 

 was transplanted about five or six feet high from the native 

 habitats of the young trees, and which fully answers our 

 expectations respecting it, forming a perfectly thick screen, 

 and an excellent shelter on the north of a range of buildings 

 at all seasons of the year, growing perfectly thick without 

 trimming, from the very ground upwai'ds. 



