294 
A COMPARISON OF THE 
Evergreen and Deciduous Trees and Shrubs Com¬ 
pared. —It is a common complaint among tree-growers that ever¬ 
greens are neglected more than other trees, considering their 
peculiar merits in giving winter as well as summer verdure. We 
do not agree with this view. The whole coniferae or evergreen 
tribe were, according to the records of geology, an earlier and (if 
the harmony of progress in the development of both the vegetable 
and animal worlds is believed) necessarily an inferior order of vege¬ 
tation to the later forms of deciduous trees. And we think that 
those lovers of trees who study them in middle age and maturity, 
rather than in their nursery growth and infantile graces, will rank 
very few of the evergreens as peers in richness and cheerfulness 
of verdure, or grace and variety of expression, with the finest spe¬ 
cimens of deciduous trees. During the first twenty years of their 
growth, however, their most beautiful characteristics are so con¬ 
spicuous, and afford to the novice in the study of trees so many 
novel graces of form, color and growth—their little pyramids of 
verdure gleaming brightly through snows in winter, or resting 
lovingly on the lawn and perfuming the air with their balsamic 
breath in summer—that they seem to us more like our own chil¬ 
dren, than those more aspiring trees of deciduous breeds which 
stretch away upwards with rambling vigor while young, and whose 
beauties begin to multiply only after their branches sway in the 
air far over our heads. The very peculiarity which, in youth, 
makes the evergreens, as a class, more charming than deciduous 
trees, viz: feathery gracefulness of their foliage and outlines, is 
reversed at maturity, when most of them become more rigid and 
monotonous in outline, and less cheerful in expression, than the 
average of deciduous trees. There is a comparative sameness of 
form and manner of branching among evergreens, in marked con¬ 
trast with the infinite variety among deciduous trees. 
But though the coniferse may not take equal rank with deciduous 
trees in the variety of their forms or expressions at maturity, they 
certainly offer the most pleasing studies for the beginner in gar- 
denesque planting. Many new species of a semi-dwarf character 
have been introduced within a few years, and it has also been 
found that many of the larger species may, by good trimming, be 
