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AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



August, 1908 



" Huck-ween Lodge" : The Boat House on the Lake 



Half a Dozen Great Home Trees 



1 HERE are about half a dozen trees that are 

 wonderful as ozone breeders, and therefore 

 specially helpful around a country house. 

 ( 1 ) Of course the apple tree heads the list, 

 and is far and away the finest home tree 

 in the world. If I could have my way 

 about it every country house would either 

 be built in an orchard or close by an orchard. Other con- 

 ditions being even tolerable, the owner of that house would 

 have a healthier family. I do not know a better tonic than 

 to breathe the air of an orchard when in blossom. 



(2) The basswood is not half appreciated by Americans as 

 a home tree. It is superb every way, for its rapid growth, for 

 its splendid foliage, but most of all for its delicious bloom, 

 out of which the bees make the best honey we have. The 

 German linden is nothing to compare with it, but the Ger- 

 mans know how to appreciate what they have. I had always 

 known the basswood as a bee tree, but one day, when at 

 home on a vacation, and on a load of hay, I drove under a 

 great basswood when in full bloom. Then I learned that it 

 was as glorious for perfume as for honey. I stopped my 

 horses long enough to take a good dose of the ozone. 



(3) The old-fashioned yellow locust deserves third place in 

 this list; and only for its scraggy growth it should have sec- 

 ond place. When loaded, for it is really weighed down with 

 flowers sometimes, with great clusters of leguminous blos- 

 soms, there is nothing to beat it for beauty and sweetness. 

 Its perfume absolutely fills the whole homestead, and when 

 brought down with the dew it becomes almost too rich. The 

 locust comes into blossom just between apples and lindens, 

 and pretty nearly fills up the gap. It will grow almost any- 



where, and not seldom half in water. Taking care of itself 

 under all sorts of conditions, you rarely find a fine shaped 

 tree. But take a young tree, give it plenty of room, and 

 care for it till it is thirty feet high and you will get a weil 

 shaped tree, that will stay in clean wood for many years. 



(4) Catalpa speciosa certainly deserves the fourth place, 

 and it follows right after the locust in bloom. Take one of 

 these trees forty feet high, and loaded with its elegant and 

 sweet flowers, what can be finer? It is a tree to be loved; 

 grand for timber, noble in appearance, beyond all forest 

 trees for blossoming, and a splendid ozone breeder. This 

 tree is getting to be very popular, and it is hardy as far north 

 as the elm will grow. The bignonoides is an entirely dif- 

 ferent tree, with spreading growth and magnificent flowers, 

 opened later than the speciosa, yet the tree is not quite hardy. 

 Better than even speciosa for a small home is Teas hybrid 

 catalpa. If you can, get a package of seed and grow your 

 own trees. The hybridization will show itself in all your 

 seedlings, giving you a great variety. Some of these will 

 be rich purple in leaf, while others are golden leaved. 



(5) If I were writing for the Southern States alone I 

 would place as number five Magnolia grandifiora. This 

 tree can never be over-praised. One variety of it is called 

 the honey-flowered, and the fragrance is certainly remarkably 

 fine. But our Northern magnolias are none of them remark- 

 able for sweetness excepting conspicua. 



(6) The Kentucky coffee tree is overlooked altogether too 

 much. The male tree is loaded in June with delicious 

 flowers, spicy and pungent. The odor is exceedingly health- 

 ful, while the tree is interesting in the extreme, for its pe- 

 culiar adjustment of limbs. 



