GARDENS, STREETS, ETC. 



163 



disagreeable moisture round us in winter, which we are cer- 

 tainly better without. 



I am certain that if the expense and trouble taken to 

 plant evergreens in cities were devoted to the best of our 

 deciduous trees and shrubs, a beauty would result to which 

 towns are at present strangers. Even in parks and places 



Fig. 60. 



Sophora japonica var. pendula. One of the many deciduous trees of which the 

 wintry aspect is preferable to that presented by smutty and half-dead " ever- 

 greens.' ' 



where one would be led to expect a tolerable display of fine 

 flowering deciduous trees, the shrubbery vegetation is so in- 

 tolerably poor and monotonous — so devoid of variety and 

 interest — that it is not surprising that town planters fall 

 back on evergreens and plant little else round their churches 

 and in their squares. A fine double Cherry, pyramidal in 

 outline, and hung with snowy bouquets, seen against one of 



m 2 



