AND SHUUBS TOR CITIES. 



167 



Next to the Plane^ tlie Horse-cliestnut seems to offer tlie 

 greatest advantages. It has not indeed the stature and 

 beauty of frame of the Plane,, nor does it attain as large a 

 size and as perfect health in cities, but it possesses great 

 claims from its fine foliage^, large sweet silvery spikes of 

 bloom^ and proved capacity of growing well as a town tree, 

 even where the ground is hard and root-room scarce. If 

 Paris is seen to greatest advantage when her groves of 

 this tree are piled up with little pyramids of flowers, 

 what might we not expect from the fact that it does even 

 betterwith us? The avenue of Horse-chestnuts in theRegent^s 

 Park is a case in point. In Paris daring the past year they 

 lost their leaves rather early and became too rusty to be 

 agreeable to the eye ; but on coming to London at the 

 beginning of August I found them in a green and healthy 

 state after one of the most trying summers we have ever 

 had. While selecting picturesque trees for towns that are 

 not liable to suffer from disease or insect pests, we must 

 also encourage variety as much as possible. The Horse- 

 chestnut would be worth growing for the sake of its foliage 

 alone, but when the additional charm of its superb in- 

 florescence is taken into account there can be no hesita- 

 tion in placing it among the most eligible of town trees. 



The common Robinia or Locust tree has been so long and 

 extensively tried that we need have no more doubt about it. 

 It will never justify the reputation that Cobbett gave it, but 

 I know of no tree which maintains such a depth of sweet 

 verdure and freshness by the sides of the dustiest roads and 

 in the most unlikely places. No drought seems to touch 

 it ; no heat renders it rusty-looking or fatigued. Few other 

 trees stood the heat of the summer of 1868 so well, and 

 after the drought was ended it looked as if it had just passed 

 through a showery month of June. It is worthy of being 

 much more extensively used as a park and square tree ; it is 

 also good for street use, not growing too large, and is the 

 best of all known trees for planting in the front of a suburban 

 house or villa, or in any position where a pleasant object is 

 required to refresh the eye at all times. Compared to the 

 Lime which is so often planted before London houses, it is 

 as gold to pe,wter. 



