280 
PARK AND CCAETCRV 
The Golden Leaved Scotch Pine. 
The common Scotch pine is much used by plant- 
ers, because of its hardiness, quick growth and the 
silvery color of its foliage, and when it gets of large 
size, so as to expose its trunk, there is seen a red- 
dish colored bark which adds to the attraction of 
the tree. This tree is largely planted in England, 
both for ornamental and commercial purposes, 
though of very little use in commerce, the timber 
being not nearly the equal of other woods. But it 
is quick growing and the clim- 
ate is its own and there is a 
great deal of it set out. It is 
much used for sheltering in 
large parks as well as for land- 
scape work, so that in passing 
through the nurseries there, one 
is prepared to see a great quan- 
tity of it. There are also in 
the nurseries a great many 
varieties of this pine. I think 
the European nurserymen are 
more alert than ours are to the 
value of varieties, and there is 
no doubt that they have more 
customers for such curiosities 
than we have. When visiting 
there last summer I noticed 
many dwarf forms of the Scotch 
pine, but specimens of the 
one illustrated herewith, the 
golden leaved, I do not 
remember to have seen. The photograph 
of this one was taken from a fine specimen in Fair- 
mount Park, Philadelphia, by permission of the 
commissioners. Mr. Charles H. Miller, the land- 
scape gardener in charge, tells me it was set in its 
present position soon after the close of the Cen- 
tennial in 1876. As it is now but about ten feet 
high and twelve feet wide, it will be seen what a 
slow growth it makes. This slow growth fits it well 
for the position it occupies, which is the front of 
taller evergreen and deciduous trees. The color of 
the foliage in this tree is a light golden one. In 
that of small plants propagated from it, in rich soil, 
it is more of a rich golden yellow, probably from 
the extra vigor of such trees. The dwarf evergreen 
shown on the left of the picture is a dwarf white 
pine, another useful one for such situations as it 
occupies. Immediately behind the dwarf golden 
Scotch pine is a fine specimen of Pinus Mandshu- 
rica, and to the left of it one of the common )vhite 
pines, the branches of the deciduous tree visible 
being of the black oak. The illustration gives a 
good representation of its habit. 
Joseph Me eh an . 
Changing Our Mourning Customs. 
“One of the surest indications that, as a people, 
we are tearing away from barbaric customs,’’ says 
the Ladies' Home Journal, “is found in the changes 
which, slowly but surely, have come over our 
mourning customs and funeral emblems. The time 
is not so far back when the announcement in a 
funeral notice that ‘friends will please omit flowers’ 
was an unheard of thing. When this first appeared 
people wondered at it. * * * Nov/ one meets the 
request in numerous cases, and the effect has been 
good. ‘Gates Ajar’ and similar vulgar floral mon- 
strosities are being discarded, and the modest laurel 
wreath or cross, or sheaf of wheat have in good 
taste supplanted them. Flowers for the dead are 
not to be decried so long as they have a meaning 
or carry a message of tender sympathy to the liv- 
ing, or attest a love, reverence or respect for the 
dead. But when offered missionless, in profusion, 
jammed or crammed into every imaginable made- 
to-order-looking design or device, the custom (or 
habit) of thus remembering the dead becomes of- 
fensive and is best honored in the breach.’’ That 
paper also expresses hearty satisfaction that the day 
of big funeral corteges is passing, and the heavy 
black crape at the door of the home which death 
has entered has been supplanted by simple, unob- 
trusive wreaths of green or blossoms. With equal 
gratification it notes that the sight of young child- 
ren, fairly stifling beneath the heavy folds of 
mourning, is becoming more and more rare. In 
this connection it says; “We never thoroughly 
understood until recently the depth of affection and 
the sure, sane judgment which prompted that 
THE GOLDEN LEAVED SCO'J CH PINE. 
