1874, ] 
THE JUDAS TREE. 
35 
of good fruit into tlio homes of thousands who hardly ever taste it now. Why 
should not such a change be at once begun ? This is the time to plant; and if any 
farmer would begin on only one hedge-row this winter, I am sure it would be 
followed by scores or hundreds next. Hardly anything could add more to the 
richness of our landscapes than the beauty of fruit-trees, in bloom and in fruit, in 
our hedge-rows. Even the form of the trees would be an immense improvement on 
the unsightly objects which now deform, rather than adorn, these boundary lines. 
And then as to groups in parks, and homo-grounds, and plantations, what an 
additional charm these would prove to the country I Parks are mostly overdone 
with green—green below, green above, green wherever you look or go. The blossoms 
or fruits of fruit-bearing trees would add the needed colour, and lighten up the 
entire scene, as when a dark summer cloud is rolled off from the face of an April 
sun. Nay, if a little extra colour were needed, we have abundance now in our noble 
host of variegated trees, ranging through all shades of silver and gold, red and 
purple, even into semi-blackness. Hitherto planters of hedge-rows, and even of 
parks, seem often to have been guided by mere routine, or the red-tape of every-day 
customs. They planted as others did, or for shelter merely, or at best for certain 
results of mere mass and shade. The time is surely come for the due use of 
colour, running it as a golden or purple or silver thread through all our lines 
and massings, to make of the different fields one harmonious whole of outspread¬ 
ing beauty, and to crown the produce of the far-reaching parks with coronets of 
uprising splendour. 
And then, how this change would add to our fruit basket! We spend nearly 
£4,000,000 per annum for fruit. Probably this might be reduced one-half, were 
Fruit-trees to adorn our hedge-rows, and form clumps, at once of beauty and 
plenty, in our parks and pleasure-grounds.—D. T. Fish, Hardimcke. 
THE JUDAS TREE. 
[LTHOUGH the leguminous or pod-bearing family of plants, to which the 
common Judas tree {Cercis Siliquastrum) belongs, is one of the most ex¬ 
tensive and useful in a commercial way, it is not by any means in the 
back-ground from an ornamental point of view, for it is this family of 
plants which produces some of the most gaudy colours by which the scenery of 
this country is enlivened and enriched. The subject of this paper is a plant that 
may well lay claim to a place in the latter category. It is a hardy deciduous tree, 
producing a wonderful quantity of red fiowers in the months of May and June, 
and that before much of the leaf expands to hide them. So distinct is it in 
colour, and so profuse its bloom as compared with any other tree flowering at that 
time of the year, that even a shrub of not more than a few feet in height is very 
conspicuous_and ornamental. I have seen the plant growing against a wall, and 
also as an ornamental shrub on the lawn. In the latter position, it is every season 
most lovely ; but with only one exception I have no recollection of ever meeting 
with the tree planted where it could develop itself into suitable proportions, so 
