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odor of the Magnolia suggest luxury and voluptuousness while 
every line, every swollen knuckle of the Mesa Cedar expresses 
thrift. Since humor in the landscape can be attained only by 
introducing the grotesque, it will be found in the odd shapes of 
the stunted Pines and Junipers of higher altitudes. As for 
tragedy, its very soul is in the Pines and Cypresses of our wind- 
swept coasts. 
In the northern coast range mountains of California grows a 
hundred mile forest of Sequoia sempervirens. Their huge 
trunks line the road like the 
columns of a cathedral aisle. 
If higher thoughts may be 
induced by the sight of any- 
thing, surely this forest will 
arouse them. In the Sierra 
Nevada are the Sequoia gi- 
gantea. They were hoary 
old giants in the days of 
Herod. They are the oldest, 
the largest, and the most 
tenacious of life of all living 
things. 1 n their presence the 
voice of the chattering tourist 
is hushed and hats are re- 
moved from heads that know 
no bareness save at night. 
On the Monterey peninsula 
is a grove of Cypress. Their 
trunks are gnarled and 
twisted. The undersides of 
their branches are corroded 
to a burnt orange by the 
salt mists of ages, but their 
golden green tops still glow 
in the sunlight. Some say 
they are the progenitors of the 
Cedars of Lebanon. What- 
ever their lineage, for sheer 
picturesque beauty they are 
unsurpassed. 
I F HE who died so glor- 
iously could say thus mod- 
estly, “ Poems are made by 
fools like me, but only God 
can make a tree,” is it pre- 
sumptuous on the part of 
others to write about them? 
Should it appear so my an- 
swering plea is that, in some 
of us, the instinct to speak of 
the ones we love is sometimes 
too strong to be denied. But 
to love an object one must 
know it. One may possess 
two kinds of knowledge of 
living things, physical and 
spiritual. Many have a phys- 
ical knowledge of trees. Only 
a few reach the inner shrine 
of a spiritual knowledge of 
them. To acquire such an 
understanding of anything 
necessitates an intimacy that 
is not attained by many, at 
least in the case of trees. 
Would you lift this veil of Isis? Would you see the 
leprechawns at play in a mossy glade? Would you hear the 
peaceful songs of the kingdom of serenity? If so, spend a 
month in a canoe on the Birch lined rivers of Canada; tramp 
through the Adirondacks when the color is in the Beech and 
The Garden Magazine, August, 1921 I 
Chestnut leaves; break your way through the dense woods of 
Virginia when the Dogwood and Judas-trees are in bloom; ! 
stretch out upon the grass in the shade of a huge moss-festooned 
Oak in Louisiana; inhale the fragrance of Magnolias while the 
mockingbirds sing to you on a moonlit night in the Carolinas, 
and in a year or so you will begin to feel some of the love that 
springs from intimacy with trees. 
Take the trail on the plateaus of Arizona when the Cactus is in 
bloom; build your campfire of dead branches from stunted 
Cedars on the Mesa Verde; I 
snowshoe through Colorado 
when the Spruces are spark- 
ling with snow; ride days and 
days along the trails that , 
thread the northern expanse 
of the Great Divide, and per- i 
haps the spirit of the trees j 
will whisper to you. Swing 
down through Oregon’s for- 
ests of giant Firs; sleep on the 
deep covering of pine needles 
in the vast timberlands of 
California; ascend the slopes 
of the Sierra Nevada through 
groves of slender lodge-poles; 
skirt the land of solitude, 
sentineled by hoary Foxtail 
Pines; follow the crest past 
dwarfed, gnarled, and aged 
Junipers that rive the granite 
cliffs, and come to rest in 
the corner of a giant Sequoia’s 
hollow trunk with the turrets 
of your castle towering hun- 
dreds of feet above you — do 
these things and you may 
come to know what some men 
mean when they speak of the 
spirit of the trees. 
A spiritual knowledge of 
trees would go a long way 
toward obviating the re- 
peated errors of garden de- 
signers who use trees inap- 
propriately. Everyone re- 
alizes that the top of a knoll 
is no place for the Lily pool. 
He may know that Sedges 
and Rushes do not belong in 
the Rose garden. If he were 
as familiar with the character 
of trees as he is with the 
nature of water and Rushes 
he would not plant a Cypress 
by the children’s sand pile. 
To set down anything like 
an outline of what might con- 
stitute the proper use of trees 
demands some sort of class- 
ification of gardens that is 
based upon character. It 
will not suffice to employ the 
ordinary types such as formal, 
natural, and picturesque. 
These are based on form 
rather than character. A 
formal garden may express anything. So may a natural one. 
Lombardy Poplars may be used in both with equal propriety. 
To determine whether a tree is properly used in a garden one 
must know what is the spirit of the garden itself. Such a group- 
ing as romantic gardens, playful gardens, industrial gardens. 
Huy. .es Photo., St. Paul 
“THE GREAT DIVIDE” 
“Ride days on days along the northern trails that thread 
the Great Divide and you may come to know what some 
men mean when they speak of the spirit of the trees" 
