The Garden Magazine 



Wtyy j]5ot JUtotng Cl)tt£tma0 Cree£: 



^HE use of green material, cut 

 from the woods to serve for 

 interior decoration at the 

 Christmas season, is much 

 more than a mere custom — it is a tradition 

 grafted on to a real and strong sentiment. Old 

 and young alike make merry at this time, clus- 

 tering around the fireside indoors. Yet with 

 one accord such green leaves as are to be found 

 outdoors are brought in triumph to adorn our walls 

 and halls. Ages ago primitive man cut the green 

 branches of the evergreens and bore them in triumph in his 

 primitive festivals as tokens of joy and promise of returning 

 warmth ; for had not the sun ceased its bad habit of showering less 

 and less light and warmth on the earth? The days were becoming 

 longer, the nights shorter. And to this day 

 the Christmas tide festival is celebrated in 

 the traditional manner albeit the actual reason 

 is a totally different one. So strong is tradition 

 and habit. 



We, of to-day, consciously gather garlands 

 of leaves and cut branches of green trees to 

 decorate our houses because of the joy that is 

 in us and which demands an outward, visible 

 expression. So our habit has been to go out 

 into the woods, where such were available, 

 and cut down the evergreens, bearing the 

 wreckage in triumph to our homes. The 

 habit, of necessity, has become commercialized 

 for the very fact that when people were most 

 congregated there were fewer and fewer avail- 

 able woods or forests from which to cut. 

 Hence, from the mountains come each year 

 carload on carload of cut down evergreens — 

 firs, pines, and spruce to satisfy the demands 

 of the city. Let there be no misunderstanding 

 here; much of this material is cut down of 

 necessity for the welfare of what remains. 

 The mere cutting down of a tree in the forest 

 is not necessarily an act of destruction. On 

 the contrary, it may be an act of the highest 

 conservation. 



■fc Let the gardener think for just a mo- 

 ^3 ment. What happens every day in the 

 vegetable and flower garden when crops are 

 raised from carefully planted seed? The young plants sprout up, 

 all too densely, and a vigorous thinning is essential to the welfare 

 of the survivors. And so it is in wild conditions, only more so! 

 Nature, left to herself, plants seeds very lavishly and depends on 

 the stronger growing plant outcrowding the weaker, which finally 

 succumbs in the struggle for life. The scientific forester with an 



eye to the future "thins" his forest year 

 by year, always giving the greater op- 

 portunity to the more worthy tree. Thus, 

 in scientific forestry, there is a constant 

 supply of surplus material that can be put onto 

 the market. It is, of course, unfortunate that 

 all our forest lands are not under scientific, or 

 at all events intelligent, control; but the wisdom 

 of really managing our rich native woodland and 

 growth has only very recently become apparent, 

 and it had to become apparent before it could become a 

 generally accepted fact. 



But, for all that has been said, the real garden lover, especially 

 if he live fairly near the habitation of other people in more or 

 less "settled" communities, cannot but feel a sort of shock as the 

 holiday time approaches when he contemplates 

 the possibility that he may be a factor (uncon- 

 sciously) in a sort of vandalism that he abhors. 



M The Christmas tree that adorns your 

 ^^ home may have been improvidently cut 

 down! With all our knowledge that the wild 

 woods need thinning, that the march of pro- 

 gress demands the conversion of forested lands 

 to other purposes, and that the daily call for 

 wood pulp eats up a quantity far in excess of 

 the whole season's supply of trees for future 

 purposes — notwithstanding all that, there still 

 may lurk a suspicion that your own 

 tree had, after all, better have been 

 left standing. And at all events, 

 after it has served its immediate pur- 

 pose, the rootless thing is but a useless 

 relic to be consigned to the fire. 



Then if you have a garden, why 

 not keep your Christmas trees year 

 after year and add permanently to the 

 beauty of the home surroundings? 

 This is a perfectly practical plan and 

 the nurserymen will supply suitable 

 trees in tubs. These can be utilized 

 indoors for the usual decorations, 

 etc., and then later be planted out- 

 doors in the border or on the lawn. 

 Midwinter moving of evergreens is 

 quite easy. Not only are the con- 

 ventional conifers available, but also holly and the broad-leaved 

 kinds. Of course the choice of material of this latter nature will 

 not be possible in the colder regions, but given a slight shelter 

 the English holly will be found to survive in many places where 

 it is normally recorded as tender. Shelter from the winter sun- 

 shine is the important thing. 



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