62 
world, Abies nohilis and A. magnifica, occasionally exist here for a year 
or two but will never become a conspicuous feature in our northern 
plantations. There are from one hundred and sixty to one hundred and 
seventy species in the genera of Conifers which can be grown here, 
and in addition to the species a large number of varieties and forms, 
especially in Juniperus, Chamaecyparis and Picea. Of the genera which 
are more or less hardy here one hundred species can be kept alive in 
the Arboretum often for many years, but many of them present a sorry 
appearance after a severe winter and are of more interest to students 
of trees than to lovers of beautiful plants. 
This short review of the Conifers shows that a comparatively small 
number of these plants can be depended on to become permanent or- 
naments to northern gardens and that the best of them here, with the 
exception of native species, are inferior in size and beauty to these 
plants in regions suited to their best growth, like the west coast of 
Scotland, the Italian lakes, and northwestern North America. 
In northeastern North America many shrubs with deciduous leaves 
grow better and produce more abundant crops of flowers and fruit than 
anywhere in the world, and such plants can well and economically re- 
place the dwarf and other Conifers v/hich of late have been so largely 
used in the northern and middle states. If Evergreens are essential 
there are several dwarf hardy Rhododendrons which form a more com- 
pact setting for a building than the mixed plantation of little Conifers, 
and among other broad-leaved Evergreens suitable for the purpose there 
is the Laurel {Kalmia latifolia), the handsomest broad-leafed Evergreen 
plant which can be grown in the eastern states, the Inkberry of our 
coast region, and the Andromeda Jloribunda of the southern Appala- 
chian Mountain forests. 
The exceptionally mild winter of 1920-21 and the unusually heavy 
rainfall of the past summer have improved the appearance of the Ar- 
boretum Conifers which are now looking unusually well, but as‘ at least 
from seventy-five to one hundred years are needed to properly test the 
value of any tree of large size transferred to a region where it does 
not grow naturally we can only feel sure that such native Conifers as 
the White Pine {Pinus Strobus), the northern Hemlock (Tsuga cana- 
densis), the so-called Red Cedar {Juniperus virginiana), the Arborvitae 
{Thuya occidentalis), and the White Cedar (Chamaecyparis thyoides), 
are really the trees for permanent New England plantations. 
Of the White Pine and the Hemlock nothing need be said here; their 
place is among the noble Conifers of the world and they are familiar 
to all the tree lovers of northeastern America. As a timber-tree only 
the long-leaved Pine of the south {Pinus palustris) is more valuable 
than the White Pine. The Red Cedar is a widely distributed tree rang- 
ing from Nova Scotia to eastern Texas. In this great region it varies 
in size and habit, and at the north is rarely more than thirty or forty 
feet high and usually of narrow pyramidal habit, while in the south its 
head is more often broad and round-topped; it grows, too, to a large size 
in the south sometimes, and specimens once existed in the valley of the 
Red River one hundred feet high. Largely used now, especially in the 
middle states, for the decoration of gardens this Juniper is more valuable 
as a timber than as an ornamental tree for in gardens it too often suffers 
badly from the red spider and other disfiguring insects. But as a tim- 
ber tree the Red Cedar among American trees is in a class by itself. 
