I 
268 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
most evergreens by its flat foliage, composed of a great 
number of scales closely imbricated, or overlaying each 
other, which give the whole a compressed appearance. 
The seeds are borne in a small cone, usually not more than 
half an inch in length. 
This tree is extremely formal and regular in outline 
in almost every stage of growth ; generally assuming the 
shape of an exact cone or pyramid of close foliage, of con- 
siderable extent at the base, close to the ground, and nar- 
rowing upwards to a sharp point. So regular is their 
outline in many cases, when they are growing upon 
favorable soils, that at a short distance they look as if they 
had been subjected to the clipping-shears. The sameness 
of its form precludes the employment of this evergreen in 
so extensive a manner as most others ; that is, in inter- 
mingling it promiscuously with other trees of less artificial 
forms. But the Arbor Vitae, from this very regularity, is 
well suited to support and accompany scenery when objects 
of an avowedly artificial character predominate, as buildings, 
etc., where it may be used with a very happy effect. There 
is also no evergreen tree indigenous or introduced, which 
will make a more effectual, close, and impervious screen 
than this : and as it thrives well in almost every soil, moist, 
dry, rich, or poor, we strongly recommend it whenever 
such thickets are desirable. We have ourselves tried the 
experiment with a hedge of it about 200 feet long, which 
was transplanted about five or six feet high from the native 
habitats of the young trees, and which fully answers our 
expectations respecting it, forming a perfectly thick screen, 
and an excellent shelter on the north of a range of buildings 
at all seasons of the year, growing perfectly thick without 
trimming, from the very ground upwards. 
