Choice of Trees — Grouping, Sfc, 487 
and unsightly to the eye; while a third class, although they may 
possess satisfactory qualities in most other respects, are attacked 
by noxious and disgusting insects during certain seasons of the 
year, and are often greatly injured thereby, if not totally destroyed. 
Hence the difficulties our early tree planters labor under, who 
grouped along in the dark, in many respects, and we need not be 
surprised, nor should we attach any blame to their praise-worthy 
efforts, even if they have not been the most choice in their se- 
lections, and the most judicious in their management." 
"Tree culture, like music, architecture, dress, &.C., has its style, 
and consequently its rise and decline, according to the age and 
country in which it may prevail. For instance, the box tree was 
much employed in verdant sculpture and close clipped hedges in 
the gardens of Roman villas in the Augustan age. Pliny de- 
scribes his * Tusculan villa,' as having a lawn adorned with 
figures of animals cut out in box trees, answering alternately to 
one another. This lawn was again surrounded by a walk enclosed 
with evergreen shrubs, sheared into a variety of forms. Beyond 
this was a place for exercise, of a circular form, ornamented in 
the middle with box trees, sheared as above into numerous devices; 
and the whole was surrounded by a sloping bank, covered with 
box, and rising in steps to the top. In another part of the grounds 
of the same villa, the box is mentioned as having been cut into a 
variety of shapes and letters; some expressing the name of the 
master, and others that of the artificer. The same practice is still 
followed in several Roman gardens. In that of the Vatican for 
instance, a few years since, the name of the pope, the date of his 
election, &c., might be read from the windows of the palace, in 
letters of box." 
" Soon after the introduction of the Lombardy poplar, by 
Hamilton, in 1784, it uninterruptedly spread throughout the 
country, and by the end of the second decade of the present 
century (1819), it had multiplied to such an extent, that stiff 
formed rows of it were to be seen growing in front of dwellings 
and along the borders of fields and road sides in almost every 
civilized town in the Union. But owing to the monotony and 
whimsical effect it usually produced in the scenery, and to its 
long creeping roots, which insinuated themsblves below the sur- 
face of the ground, often to a distance of twice the height of its 
summit, forcing assunder pavements and celler walls, and robbing 
the neighboring vegetation of its legitimate food; this tree, for 
general purposes of ornament, was very justly condemned. Since 
the last named period, however, from the universal prejudice 
against its culture, the opposite extreme has prevailed, and it is 
feared that ten years hence scarcely an individual will be left in 
the country. This is to be regretted, as this poplar has a charac- 
