DECIDUOUS TREES. 
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forms, or the number of differing varieties, we find them equally 
adapted to beautify small grounds. No one family of trees furnishes 
so many pretty specimen small trees for a lawn ; ranging in size 
from the smallest shrubs to middle-sized trees — some of them 
almost evergreen. All the species require a dry, rich soil; in 
which their annual growth for the first ten years will be from one 
to two feet a year. 
The Cockspur Thorn, C. crus-galli, Fig. 145, is the most 
interesting of indigenous species. All its 
varieties will assume a distinct tree-form, 
though some of them are but shrubs in size. 
The breadth of their heads is usually greater 
than their height, and their forms vary from 
globular to squarish-oblate. Their greatest 
height and breadth is about thirty feet, but 
usually not more than from twelve to twenty 
feet. This species is distinguished by thicker 
and glossier leaves, more entire in outline than 
the other sorts ; being more or less serrate, 
but not lobed. The thorns are single, long, 
and very sharp. At maturity the branches, 
which are numerous, have a horizontal 
direction, and the lights and shadows are 
in thin, sharply defined, and generally level lines like those of the 
beech tree. We have seen wild groves of these thorns, in western 
openings, which by the aid of sheep had become exquisite bits of 
park scenery. The sheep had fed on their sweet leaves as high 
as they could reach from beneath, so that the under sides of the 
trees were as level as the pasture below them. Above this level 
line the trees spread in stratified lines of foliage entirely in har- 
mony with the polished and artificial cut of their bases. Their 
broad heads, so close to the lawn, and yet with a clearly defined 
space above it, make shadows of great depth, which bring the 
lights around them into bright relief. 
The most peculiar varieties are the C. c. splefidens^ noted for the 
abundance and brilliant glossiness of its leaves ; the plum-leaved 
