CHARACTERISTICS OF TREES, 
281 
Beauty of Form. — Next to the beauty that comes from vigor 
of growth, or the glow of high health, is beauty of form. On this 
matter tastes differ widely. To artists it seems a vulgar unculti- 
vated taste to prefer a solid pumpkin-headed tree, to one of more 
irregular outline ; but preference is so often expressed for trees of 
such forms that it may be imprudent to speak disrespectfully of it. 
Such trees certainly possess the first element of beauty of form, 
viz., symmetry; but it is symmetry without variety. They may also 
have the beauty of thrift and good color. An 
apple tree from fifteen to twenty years old has Fig. t;9. 
this quality of head as shown in Fig. 59. As it 
grows old, however, its form changes materially, 
so that its outline is quite irregular and spirited 
— broader, nobler, and more domestic in expres- 
sion — as will be seen by comparing Fig. 56 with 
Fig. 59. Young sugar maples have similar forms slightly elon- 
gated, as shown by Fig. 60, though with age they break into out- 
lines less monotonous, as shown by Fig. 61, and 
their shadows have more character. The same 
may be said of the horse-chestnuts. The hicko- 
ries and the white oak, assume more varied 
outlines while young, without losing that balance 
of parts which constitutes symmetry. Sugar 
maples are always symmetric in every stage of 
their growth ; but their early symmetry is insipid, like that of the 
human face when unexceptionable in features, but devoid of ex- 
pression ; or rather like that of the doll-face, 
which can hardly be said to have either features 
or expression, but only beauty of color, the 
semblance of health, and features faintly sug- 
gested. The change in forms of many trees 
which are excessively smooth in their early out- 
lines is towards more and more variety of con- 
tour and depth of shadow as they approach 
maturity, and occasionally in old age they de- 
velop into grandly picturesque trees ; as in the 
case of the white oak and the chestnut among deciduous trees, and 
the cedar of Lebanon among evergreens. 
Fig. 61. 
Fig. 60. 
