What Can be Done in 'Ten Tears 
“overlea” in 1891 
A View from the Street showing the Growth of Three Tears 
A. dyascarpum decried, but 
Weir’s cut-leaved variety, with 
the graceful curves of its pen¬ 
dant branches, its open, bright 
green, dancing foliage, and its 
symmetrical shape, is a far 
pleasanter neighbor ot the 
house than the denser leaved 
varieties ot rock and sugar 
maple, which are so grand in 
their natural hillside habitat. 
A noble tree for the lawn is 
the Catalpa speciosa , quite har¬ 
dy in our locality, with its 
great leaves and candelabra 
of exquisite white blossoms 
tinged with pink. It is a 
free grower, and with us, under most adverse 
conditions, has done very well, though it 
loses many of its lower leaves in July, when 
the season happens to be dry, and it once 
had its top taken off in a sudden squall. 
Groups ot white stemmed birches are 
very ornamental here and there. The swift¬ 
est growing of these is the European variety 
of Betula alba, which is a thrifty and hand¬ 
some tree when young, but short-lived, and 
it does not keep up in dignity with Betula 
papyriferia (the canoe birch), which in time 
reaches truly magnificent proportions. 
We started with five different kinds of 
birches in a group, but they needed thinning 
out from time to time to give proper devel¬ 
opment to the better specimens. 
The quickest result in planting comes 
from well-developed, well-rooted nursery 
trees which have already been moved more 
than once. When the tap root is thus de¬ 
stroyed, numerous branching shoots spread 
out, which promptly take hold of the new 
ground and aid in the quick growth of the 
branches. But in time the smaller trees get 
ahead of the larger ones in height and vigor, 
especially in the case ot forest trees like the 
chestnut and hickory. 
It is said that a tree grown from seed will 
in the end overtop and be more vigorous 
than a transplanted one which has lost its 
tap root. English oaks have grown in this 
locality forty feet in fourteen years from the 
acorn. We have numerous oaks on our 
once barren hillside which have grown from 
acorns into wide-spreading and fairly tall 
trees in fifteen years, and pine seeds sown 
freely have afforded a vigorous growth. 
Once establish forest conditions, and a grove 
replenishes itself with wonderful vigor. 
When we began to plant, four acres 
seemed an impossible waste to clothe with 
verdure, but it is astonishing how narrow a 
space the same acreage has now become, and 
how impossible it is to find a spot on which 
to move anything. We have enough and to 
spare to furnish a place of twice this size, and 
the present problem is how to cut in such a 
way as to keep the trees in good condition. 
On the hill we have a variety of flourish¬ 
ing conifers, white and Scotch and Austrian 
pines, hemlocks and savins ( Juniperus Vir- 
giniana ), some transplanted, others sprung 
from seed sown broadcast; also seedling 
oaks, hickories, chestnuts, maples, tulip- 
trees and birches, which have grown to very 
respectable proportions. There is a stately 
row ot Norway spruces along the road, and 
scattered about the place and along the front 
are larger oaks and maples which were 
planted ; elms, chestnuts, birches in variety, 
a black ash, a catalpa, and in the garden all 
sorts of fruit trees, including the peach, 
which until the last severe winter has borne 
well for ten years. 
We have found the ash-leaved maple 
[Acer negundo ) admirable for quick shade. It 
is well to have the male variety of this tree, 
for the female sows itself everywhere, and 
the long seed vessels are not very ornamen¬ 
tal as they hang from the boughs. The ad¬ 
vantage of this maple and of the white maple 
236 
