50 TREES AND SHRUBS 



shrubs, the fitness of which foi" our climate time 

 alone could test. During that period in England, 

 the Mammoth tree of the Yosemite Valley {Sequoia 

 gigantea) has been planted in its thousands, and 

 by irony of fate, the giant not seldom finds itself 

 cramped within the limits of a half-acre plot. But 

 leaving out the question of space, it is a tree 

 utterly unsuited to our northern climate, unless 

 under exceptional circumstances, as its scorched 

 and fretted branches on the windward side suffi- 

 ciently prove ; while in itself it is not nearly so 

 grand or suggestive as its near-of-kin, the beautiful 

 Californian Redwood (S. semperuirens). 



Ah ! that burning question of space, how it comes 

 between us and our highest garden aspirations ! 

 Have we not all seen the Deodar or the Araucaria 

 trying to exist in a narrow, twelve-foot forecourt, and 

 smiled, if we have not rather been ready to weep, 

 over the crass absurdity of its position ? But such 

 mistakes are made every day. Let us think, then, 

 before we plant, of the things that are going to be, 

 and take prudent counsel with ourselves. 



Our garden resources, nowadays, are beyond all 

 calculation greater than those of our forefathers, 

 and we rejoice and are glad because of it ; but we 

 should let nothing oust from our affections the 

 hardy trees and shrubs, native and naturalised, that 

 are at home in our climate, beautiful in themselves 

 and invaluable in their fitness to give shelter to the 

 more fastidious immigrants from other latitudes. 



Shelter, in fact, is as the keynote to the winter 



