41 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
Beauty and Utility in Fruit Trees 
By Joseph Meehan. 
It has often occurred to me when seeing the beauty 
of some fruit tree in an orchard that fruit trees could 
MAZZARD CHERRY. 
oftener be used for ornamental purposes than they are. 
Last spring, a particularly full flowered apple tree, 
situated on the grounds of the Deaf and Dumb Insti- 
tution, Philadelphia, tempted me to have it photo- 
graphed for the use of Park and Cemetery. It is in 
position where once was a thriving apple orchard. 
Imagine such a tree standing alone on a lawn, in 
company with other ornamental trees, and there is, 
positively, not a tree of all the spring 
flowering ones more worthy of admi- 
ration than it would be ! There are 
many of the lovely magnolias, the 
Judas tree, flowering peaches and other 
well-known spring flowering trees and 
shrubs, but none of just the character 
the apple is. Many of our earliest 
trees and shrubs to flower are at times 
caught by late frosts, the Chinese and 
the Soulangeana magnolia are some- 
times in this list. But the apple rarely 
in'deed gets caught in this way. Every- 
one relies on it that when the 
apple is in blossom spring is surely 
here. 
A large proportion of those 
who are now wealthy and who 
live in cities have in their younger 
days lived where apple orchards 
were in view, and their love' for the old tree 
and its associations are shown by their eager- 
ness to possess a bunch of blossoms. Florists with 
stores in cities are always on the lookout for sprays 
of apple blossoms for such customers, many of them 
getting a wagon load of branches to fill orders. Those 
who have the planting of grounds would be apt to 
please their clients were they to plant an apple and a 
fruit tree or two of other kinds when locating trees. 
Another fruit tree which is beautiful when in flower 
rs the Mazzard cherry. This is the wilding from the 
cultivated sweet cherries of our orchards. Birds car- 
ried the stones with the fruit from the trees in the first 
place, and to the seedlings which sprang up from them 
has been given the name Mazzard. There are trees of 
Mazzard cherries to be found in the fields and woods 
near all large cities or near where fruit gardens have 
been, and one of these, standing near a public road, 
was photographed as well as the apple. Some of these 
trees standing in positions where they have always had 
unobstructed space to develop are most beautiful ob- 
jects. As all country boys know, the fruit of all the 
trees is good, but there are some far better than oth- 
ers'. In my own experience I once met with one so good 
that I grafted from it to a cultivated tree, preferring 
it to the other. 
It will interest many to know that the apple tree is 
on the grounds formerly belonging to the late W. L. 
Shaeffer, who was for many years the President of 
the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. On his place 
it was that the Paragon Chestnut originated, a large 
fruited kind of the Spanish. 
apple tree in flower. 
