The Beauty of Trees 
know that the great, glossy, leathery leaves 
of the evergreen magnolia are just what is 
wanted in one spot, just what is not wanted 
in another, and that, while the trembling 
leaves of the aspen and the drooping, fringe- 
like texture of the cut-leaved birch unfit them 
for many positions, they make them especial- 
ly valuable for others. He would know that 
with every change of position and environ- 
ment comes a change in the effect of the 
texture of a tree, one sort looking best in 
full sunlight, another in a shadowed spot, 
or overhanging a stream, or set close against 
the walls of a house. An artist feels all this 
in advance if his profession be landscape- 
gardening ; and he feels it at least in intelli- 
gent appreciation of existing results if it be 
some other branch of art, for it is every ar- 
tist’s habit to appraise all that he sees for the 
three properties of form, texture, and color. 
But how few amateur planters feel it in ad- 
vance ; how few lovers of trees judge their 
own or their neighbors’ places with such 
tests in mind ! Even when questions of 
form and of color are somewhat regarded, 
questions of texture very seldom are. Yet 
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