HOUSE AND GARDEN 
March, 1910 
89 
Plant trees where their shade will be all around a house rather than upon it 
even though irregularly placed, is never equal to masses planted 
so closely that their branches intermingle and crowd; and 
though it'/nay make no great difference when viewed from 
a distance, it always assures more charm in a plantation to set 
two trees of the 
same variety from 
six to eight feet 
apart than to use 
a single tree any¬ 
where. Once in a 
great while circum¬ 
stances may war¬ 
rant the planting 
of just one, but 
very, very rarely. 
The species to 
be used is always 
a matter for the 
exercise of very 
great restraint and 
caution, and one 
ought really to 
know something 
is better to have 
many kinds, and 
Plan your tree planting carefully on paper 
beforehand with the varying shadows in mind 
about trees before venturing to select. It 
many of one or two kinds than one of 
although there must be a certain amount of diversity to prevent 
monotony, we should ever be mindful of the fact that Nature 
continually presents thickets and groups and patches dominated 
by one variety. Sometimes there are a few of one or two others 
and sometimes not; if it is a beech wood there may be a few 
chestnuts, a sweet gum here and there and now and then a tall, 
straight maple or an oak, but these are scattered. The ranks of 
sleek, gray, satin-coated beeches rising on every side are in an 
overwhelming majority over all the others combined, a majority 
of from 75 to 90 per cent. 
This proportion is not possible always of course, nor necessary; 
but if three trees are to be planted, have two of one kind and one 
of another; if ten, have five or six of one kind, three of another 
and one or two of still another, rather than three of one kind, 
two of three others and a “singleton.” 
1 here is a system of selection which has been used in some of 
the best and greatest landscape parks in the world, that is worth 
considering by the owner of even a half acre, though he may not 
be able to apply it fully. This is the formation of groups com¬ 
posed entirely of different varieties of one family or species. 
Take for example the maples; there are in all between sixty and 
seventy species, out of which a dozen are found in North America — 
enough to make up a very respectable group from just native 
species, even though some must be omitted as not hardy north. 
The red maple is a beautiful tree in winter and summer, 
whether young or old, and grows from 80 to 120 feet high; the 
silver maple attains the same height but is distinctly different in 
habit, being more spreading. It is swifter 
growing too, but its wood is soft and easily 
broken, therefore it has not the permanent 
value of the other varieties. The sugar maple, 
75 to 120 feet high, is probably the finest of 
the genus when all its good points are consid¬ 
ered. Beauty, permanence, shade and utility 
are some of these. 
The black maple is very like it, but differs 
in its habit and the shade of its green; the 
large-toothed maple is smaller and different 
from all the rest in many ways; the ash¬ 
leaved maple or box elder, quick growing 
and from fifty to seventy feet high — which 
doesn’t look like a maple at all, by the way, to 
untrained eyes — is still different; and then there are three small 
species which are scarcely more than shrubs — the mountain 
maple, growing to thirty feet, the striped maple which ranges 
from a shrub to forty feet and the dwarf maple of the west which 
stops at twenty-five feet — all sufficiently dissimilar in size, shape 
and color to furnish variety in abundance when added to the 
group. 
The form of a tree is important architecturally when it is to 
be placed in intimate relation with a building which belongs to a 
distinct style.or period. With the Gothic, for instance, trees of the 
Gothic type should be used — poplars and any of the spire-shaped 
evergreens are examples—for harmonious lines are more effective 
than those which oppose. This is of course a fine point and need 
not ordinarily be raised, for ordinarily our dwellings are not 
designed with such strict adherence to the purity of a style as to 
demand such care in their surroundings. It sometimes presents 
itself, however, usually after a wrong selection has been made. 
1 mention it for the benefit of those to whose case it may apply. 
The Esthetic Aspect 
Shade and shadow in their relation to the living picture which 
all planting aims to create, are subject to the same laws of composi¬ 
tion that govern the painter's use of them on his canvas. A land¬ 
scape is cheerful or gloomy, happy or sad, according as light or 
shade predominate in it. 
It is a difficult matter to say just what the proportion shall 
be and even more difficult for an untrained eye to determine just 
what it is in any given landscape; but approximately light and 
(i Continued on page xix) 
A massing of trees at the north of a house gives an effective 
setting without shading the house 
