November, 1912 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



153 



I'm never sure. It really doesn't matter 

 to them much what I say, for not many love 

 trees enough to care, but it matters a lot 

 to me. " 



"Well, I've had the same trouble. I 

 used to put myself through a mental ex- 

 amination every time I saw either Aus- 

 trian or Scotch pine, until I thought out a 

 definition that helped me. I say if its 

 leaves are sombre and thick and rather 

 long, twist stiffly, and grow two in a sheath, 

 that it is Austrian; but if it's just about 

 the same, only more cheerful looking and 

 not quite so stiff and bristling, then it's 

 the Scotch pine. 



"What a good thing to remember. I'll 

 write that down in my garden book." 



"You say they are only three years old, 

 but some of them are three times as tall as 

 others." 



"I know it, and isn't that strangely 

 human? You put out two of three little 

 fellows, or a dozen or a thousand, of a 

 certain species, and each tree, although 

 true to its kind, has its own little way of 

 doing things. All different, all belonging 

 to the same family, and yet each in itself 

 a distinct personality. One may give them 

 the same blue sky-roof to cover them, the 

 same rain to drink, the same sun to make 

 their blood circulate, the same blankets of 

 snow while they sleep in the winter, the 

 same food from the Mother Earth to 

 quicken their souls, and yet each tree grows 

 in its own way, with it's own little crochets, 

 with its own mannerisms. Side by side 

 one is strong, courageous and full of fight; 

 its bedfellow will be weak, timid and 

 cowardly. One overrides all difficulties; 

 the other is a prey to every contagious 

 disease and every prowling insect." 



"If trees could have whooping cough I 

 suppose there would always be some weak- 

 ling whooping it up somewhere close to its 

 lordly brother who never caught things. 

 Trees are like the rest of us; some of them 

 will be enthusiasts and egoists, always at 

 the top, growing faster and broader than 

 their mates, getting the best of all things. 

 They're the fittest to survive." 



"And their poor little mates, with the 

 same chances in the world, overpowered 

 by their lordly brothers peg along humbly, 

 even quite piteously. 



"Some of these spruces and firs, and 

 even pines are forever tying their shoe 

 strings. At least I always think of a child 

 lagging behind tying its shoe string when 

 one of these cone-bearers loses its terminal 

 bud and we tie up a lateral branch to take 

 its place. It lags behind a good bit before 

 it gets a new start upward, and meantime 

 the lucky trees are pushing on ahead." 



"All are merciless to their own kind; 

 my idea has always been that growing 

 things are more so than human beings. 

 However generously they may give their 

 shade and fragrance to us mortals, to each 

 other they show no pity, each tree for itself, 

 elbowing and pushing against any that is 

 trying to get a sight of the sun. On gen- 

 eral principles they may love to be with 



their own folks, but they show no mercy, 

 no more than does Nature when her time 

 has come to do some heroic pruning." 



"We know only too well here what that 

 heroic pruning means. Oh, the ghastly 

 wrecks we have cleared away! That is 

 one of the sorrows in having aged trees 

 about one's home. One can put more heart 

 in these young things, without so much 

 fear of loss. These European larches are 

 good obedient children. You know they 

 are used for reforestation, especially in 

 Northern Europe." 



"Hardy and adaptable and grow rather 

 rapidly, I presume?" 



"Yes, I love to run my fingers along the 

 branches and touch their soft deciduous 

 leaves. These trees were so tiny two years 

 ago that the tree planter begged a space 

 in my garden, for he knew nothing would 

 go wrong with them there. They stayed 

 there a year, then last fall they were pro- 

 moted and thrown more on their resources, 

 and look at them now." 



"I see. It's fairly discouraging to look 

 at them. Heavens, does everything grow 

 like this at Hope? Don't things ever 

 die?" 



"Die? Yes, whole families die, tribes 

 are wiped out, races obliterated. Thou- 

 sands of trees have died. Do you see those 

 gaps down there? They were mostly cone- 

 bearing trees from the Pacific Coast and 

 from the Rocky Mountain region. We are 

 filling them in now. Those gaps are 

 Nature's tragic method of making us under- 

 stand." 



"Trees too young and delicate, perhaps? " 



"No, not entirely that. It is seldom the 

 fault of the tree. If they are given the 

 ghost of a chance they usually live, some- 



times we can't give them even that, more's 

 the pity. Those gaps come more from the 

 unthinking hands at the end of the hoe 

 than from any other cause. Many of the 

 trees are only three or four inches high when 

 a year old, and it's difficult to train our 

 black men not to grub out the trees when 

 they're after weeds and grass; and then, 

 too, we have had bad droughts for two 

 summers." 



"Ah! that explains. Natives of the cool 

 mountains hate drouths and hot sun." 



"Come dowTi here between the rows of 

 Scotch and white pines; there are some 

 bald cypresses that are having a great time 

 showing off at the far end of the nursery. Of 

 course one always thinks of trees as one 

 does of George Washington or William 

 Penn, standing for truth and honesty and 

 all that; and as I've watched these trees 

 of ours grow, most of them have stood from 

 infancy for exactly what they will doubtless 

 stand for in old age. These honey locusts 

 start out with thorns and they end with 

 thorns, except a few "sports" that have 

 grown up thornless; these baby box trees 

 start with a wee, chubby, stout little body 

 and they go right on, always with the same 

 stout body. So with the pines and hem- 

 locks, and the fir trees and junipers and 

 spruces, and the ashes and oaks and lindens 

 and birches." 



"As you say, most trees carry the same 

 characteristics right along to the end, but 

 the bald cypress is certainly different. I've 

 seen them down in the swamps of Louisiana. 

 Don't think I've ever examined a young 

 cypress. They were there I suppose, but I 

 was only interested in the big ones?" 



"Aren't they the weirdest looking trees 

 when they are grown? What in all the 



Could anything be more satisfying than these ' ' brotherhoods of cedars ? ' 



watch them grow 



Plant out small sizes and 



