60 
THE MANUAL OF GARDENING. 
gratification which is to be highly prized ; but it is Trees which 
beautify the landscape, and give much of the pictorial and physi- 
cal character to a country. As Americans we may justly be 
proud of the diversity of our forest trees: among them are those 
most useful and most magnificent — but as Americans we must 
regret they are not, except in a mercenary point of view, more 
fully valued. Even in the thickly settled portions of our country, 
how few comparatively look upon them with any other eye than 
to their cubic contents ! the result is, that frequently the most 
beautiful are felled, and few for ornament are planted ; whilst 
Landscape gardening is scarcely known by name, much less by 
its effects, in the United States. It is not intended by these re- 
marks to convey the idea, that the elegance of design, and broad 
expanse of an English noble’s lawn, should be copied in this 
country ; to do that, something else beside land and trees is ne- 
cessary ; but how much may be accomplished by the means at 
our command, and if our rural residents would but follow the 
Scottish Laird’s advice to his son, to plant trees habitually, we 
should see the country assume a more cheerful tone, and if they 
were placed judiciously would, instead of becoming an encum- 
brance, ultimately yield profit: not a spear of grass the less need 
be the consequence : the eye would be gratified, the owner profit- 
ed, and his cattle find shelter from the mid-day heat. 
How animating is the prospect of a luxuriant pasture, studded 
here and there with noble trees, which have been suffered to 
extend their branches with the freedom of nature ! It will be 
said, that though adapted to the meadow, trees are an encum- 
brance to the plough land ; true — if in excess, but if in moderate 
numbers, prudently placed, the loss from shade of grain, would 
be counterbalanced by the shelter to cattle in the succeeding 
grass crop ; still were it not so to the exactness of a farthing, 
should those “ who live under their own vine and fig tree,” with 
ample means for life’s enjoyment, measure every act by the inex- 
orable rule of dollars and cents I 
Acer, Maple . — The scientific name is derived from a Latin 
term, significant of sharp, from the wood having formerly been 
made into the heads of pikes. There are many beautiful trees 
of this genus, of which the American forests produce a full share ; 
for instance, A. saccharinum, the sugar maple, with its fine round 
symmetrical head, and deep green leaves, changing in the autumn 
to every shade of orange. The A. desycarpum, or silver-leaved, 
from their surface having a silver hue. The rubrum , or scarlet 
flowering, the negundo, or ash-leaved, &c. Among the European 
we may notice the pseudo-plant anoides, or sycamore, (observe a 
very distinct tree from the buttonwood, sometimes so called,) 
which abounds in the greater part of Europe. It is remarkably 
