CHOICE OF TREES AND SHRUBS FOR CITIES AND RURAL TOWNS. 
215 
DESIGN FOR A FARM-HOUSE. 
I regret very much that the whole plan of my 
Farm-House was not given in the June number of 
the Agriculturist. The basement story is entirely 
omitted. This is a very convenient part of a farm¬ 
dwelling, and I consider it, as I suppose all practical 
housewives do, of primary importance. As I had 
given some explanation respecting its construction, 
the reader would very naturally supposes I had 
stupidly forgotten it in the design.(a) 
It contained, besides an undivided cellar in front 
(of 20 by 30 feet), a spacious light and airy kitchen, 
opening into the wood-house, a large store-room at 
the foot of the stairs, closet, oven, arch, and cistern, 
a hot-air chamber, storage-room for wood and ashes, 
sink, and drain. 
The sink, instead of being in the upper kitchen 
or dining-room, where there was only sufficient 
space for a door, was in the basement directly be¬ 
neath, with a conductor for bringing water from the 
cistern. If a sink should be needed in the upper 
kitchen, the place for it would be over the drain, 
given in the design. 
A door between the sitting-room and library is 
also omitted, which would be very important, if 
this room was used either as a library or part of 
the hall. Mrs. James M. Ellis. 
Onondaga Hill , June 14 th, 1847. 
( a) We much regret these omissions, but the fault 
does not rest with us, as we copied verbatim from 
the Transactions of th e State Ag ricultural Society. 
How to Preserve Green Currants and 
Gooseberries Fresh. —M. S. Wilson, of Lenox, 
Mass., it is stated, preserves green currants in dry 
glass bottles, corked and sealed tight, placing them 
in a cool cellar. In this manner, they may be pre¬ 
served for a great length of time, so that you may 
be able to have pies on your table at all seasons of 
the year. Gooseberries may be preserved in the 
same way. _ 
CHOICE OF TREES AND SHRUBS FOR 
CITIES AND RURAL TOWNS. 
In ornamenting cities, villages, or rural towns, 
as well as public highways, farms, private grounds, 
&c., it is a great desideratum to find a class of 
trees and shrubs that will rapidly attain the desired 
form and size, afford a healthful and agreeable 
shade, and are free from the attacks of insects or 
from accidents of any kind, and at the same time 
will tend to beautify the scenery, and ultimately 
prove useful for fuel or construction in the arts. 
With the great variety of species and varieties be¬ 
fore us, whether in a wild state or under cultiva¬ 
tion, one might be led to suppose it an easy matter 
to select from among them, all that could be desired; 
yet, when we take all their points or qualities into 
account, how few there are free from objection. 
One class seemingly answer the desired end for the 
first ten or fifteen years, and then, by exuberance of 
growth, become too much expanded for the situa¬ 
tions they occupy, and unless their beauty is de¬ 
stroyed by pruning, they grow top-heavy, and are 
finally uprooted or shattered by the winds; other 
kinds appear to flourish with vigor during the first 
few years, assuming a variety of graceful and pic¬ 
turesque forms,and then are checked in their growth. 
become sickly, or stag-headed, and unsightly to the 
eye ; while a third class, although they may possess 
satisfactory qualities in most other respects, are at¬ 
tacked by noxious and disgusting insects during 
certain seasons of the year, and are often greatly 
injured thereby, if not totally destroyed. Hence 
the difficulties our early tree-planters labored under, 
who groped along in the dark, in many instances, 
and we need not be surprised, nor should we attach 
any blame to their praiseworthy efforts, even if 
they have not been the most choice in their selec¬ 
tions, and the most judicious in their management. 
Without entering in detail into the monotony of 
that large “ sylvan park,” the Boston Common, 
with a variety of soil and surface that would ad¬ 
mit of one of the finest arboretums in the world, 
or to dwell upon the seventeen other “ cities of 
elms,” in other parts of New England, or upon the 
long, formal rows of exotics in our national metro¬ 
polis, where, before all other places, we might be 
led to expect a conspicuous display of indigenous 
trees, I will pass to Brooklyn and New York. 
These two cities probably contain a greater num¬ 
ber of species of cultivated trees, native and foreign, 
than is occupied by the same extent of ground in 
any part of the Union. Hence it may be inferred, 
that in planting streets, out of so large a number of 
trees, an injudicious choice, in many cases, would 
be made, which would unavoidably be attended 
with consequent evils. The trees of this descrip¬ 
tion, which most predominate, are the weeping 
willow, the button-wood (sycamore), the European 
linden, the American and European elms, the sil¬ 
ver-leaved maple, the catalpa, the three-thorned 
gleditschia, the tulip-tree (whitewood), the horse- 
chesnut, the paper-mulberry, and the abele. 
None of these trees, nor any others of equal dimen¬ 
sions, should ever be suffered to attain one-half of 
their maximum size, within fifty feet of any human 
dwelling, either in country or town. These trees, 
to be sure, when young, like striplings, shoot into 
graceful forms, with a lightness and an airiness 
about them, that is pleasing ; but when they expand 
into their natural proportions, and attain their full 
growth, they become too large for the situations 
they v?ere intended to occupy, and by the fullness 
of their foliage, often produce an unhealthy shade. 
For we have every reason to believe that many 
residences, which naturally would have been salu¬ 
brious under other circumstances, are rendered 
damp, gloomy, and unhealthy, during certain peri¬ 
ods of the year, by the superabundance of trees and 
shrubbery, growing in their immediate proximity; 
and besides, when thus planted, the leaves of seve¬ 
ral of the afore-named trees, serve as the food of 
myriads of millions of insects, or their larvae, which 
so often infest the rooms of our houses, and an¬ 
noy passengers in the streets. What I have stated 
above is plainly illustrated in Fig. 44, next page, 
by the two largest trees, the like of which repeat¬ 
edly occur in Brooklyn, and even instances might 
be cited where entire blocks of houses are dampened, 
darkened, and overshadowed by tall forest-trees, 
which are liable at any season to be uprooted, or 
shattered into fragments by the violence of the 
wind. The pruning of these trees, in many cases, 
has been entirely neglected, while in others the 
operation has been carried too far. It has not un* 
