426 
DECIDUOUS TREES. 
alders, as the dimensions given rank it with the smallest class of 
trees. 
Gilpin, whose works on landscape gardening are of high au¬ 
thority in England, considers the alder among the most pictur¬ 
esque of aquatic trees; while Loudon, in general remarks on this 
■ family, says : “ As an ornamental tree, much cannot be said in 
favor of the alder.” 
THE APPLE TREE. Pyrus malus. 
For its beauty alone we here treat of the 
apple tree—one of those admirable families of 
trees whose members are not less beautiful 
because they feed our stomachs as well as please 
Fig. 138 
the eye. We are apt to forget how often Nature bounteously 
covers with beauty the productions which minister most to our 
necessities. The bread-fruit, the palm, the banana, and the cocoa 
of the tropics, all bear witness to the unity of the greatest beauty 
and the greatest utility; while the nut-trees, and the fruit-trees of 
the north, with their fine foliage, fragrant blossoms, and savory 
fruit, teach the same lesson in our temperate zone. We have seen 
the Magnolia soulangeana , with its immense blossoms, and the 
finest horse-chestnuts, like bountiful mountains of bouquets, bloom¬ 
ing at the same time, and near old apple trees ; and gazing on all 
their florescent splendor, have doubted which, if all of them were 
equally novelties , would be awarded the palm for the greatest beauty 
of bloom. The flowers of the magnolia and the horse-chestnut 
are more showy ; but how inferior in delicacy and fragrance ! Each 
twig of the apple tree, with its clusters of buds and blossoms, 
bedded in nests of bright opening leaves, is, in itself, an exquisite 
wild bouquet. 
The apple tree comes early into leaf, and its foliage is dark, 
glossy, and abundant. Its low, spreading form has a home expres¬ 
sion ; and, for a tree of no great size, there is something grand in 
the wide extension of the branches of old trees, casting shadows 
sometimes from forty to sixty feet in diameter; and we have seen 
