House and Garden 
“OVERLEA” IN I 89 I 
A View from the Hill Showing the Growth of Three Years 
over the other varieties is that they grow in 
much less dense heads and admit the air and 
sunlight through their more widely scattered 
branches, a benefit both to house and grass. 
When there is a western exposure, some 
shade tree is necessary to temper the glare 
of the light, and this negundo has given 
great satisfaction, while more distant trees, 
destined in the end to fill the office of um¬ 
brella, were slowly reaching a height which 
would make them of use. No one wants a 
tree permanently very near a house or win¬ 
dow, but in situations exposed to the fierce 
sun of our hot summers, a quick growing 
shelter is often necessary, and a tree of this 
kind is not handsome enough to make parting 
with it, when the time comes, a real sorrow. 
The heavy Norway maples and Acer nigrum 
and Acer saccharinum , which are excellent 
for roadsides and boundaries, should not be 
set where they are likely to intercept a view, 
for they grow in so dense a fashion that no 
amount of pruning is of any more than tem¬ 
porary avail. In vain you cut away the 
lower boughs to gain a vista; before the 
season is over the trees above send out long 
branchlets which slope downward, and the 
work is all to do over again. An American 
elm [Ulmus Americana), on the contrary, is 
admirably adapted to shade a house, and 
trimming does not mar its fine, vase-like 
shape, but makes it taller and handsomer. 
Magnolias, tulip-trees, catalpas and other 
highly ornamental trees require a great deal 
of space, and will not bear crowding. They 
need earth room and sky room to develop 
their noble proportions in the 
most desirable way, while 
chestnutd and oaks, as well as 
birches, can be grown effective¬ 
ly in groups, by trimming them 
up well below. The English 
oak, however, has a tremend¬ 
ous lateral push, and its char¬ 
acter demands a wide space for 
its spreading branches. 
On a small place one suffers 
soon from too close planting, 
which necessitates a real mas¬ 
sacre of the innocents. To act 
as headsman to a tree which 
you have set out and tenderly 
nurtured gives a pang to the 
gentle soul. When the pain becomes too keen, 
it is well to leave an order for destruction 
and go out of town for a week. When you 
return the spot is neatly turfed, the debris 
removed, you have been spared the grief of 
seeing the fair trunk fall, and very soon you 
cease to miss the departed. 
The planter must early learn to sacrifice 
sentiment to the larger beauty of his place, 
and to be willing to cut down his most 
cherished tree when the time comes that it 
becomes harmful to its neighbors, or inter¬ 
feres with a proper vista. The individual 
must give way to the picture, without regard 
to its perfection as a specimen; and that 
picture one must learn to keep in the mind’s 
eye. A great part of the landscape work on 
a place is being done while the owner sits in 
apparent idleness on his veranda, studying 
the relations of one object to another, and 
gradually evolving or carrying out a beautiful 
ideal. 
Even if carefully planted in a given place, 
trees develop in unexpected ways, and make 
suggestions of their own. To these hints 
one must be constantly alive, trying to make 
the most of them. Often the original scheme 
may be made to yield to a better one, which 
seems to grow naturally out of existing 
conditions. 
Promptly one learns to see the value of 
open spaces, of connecting curves, of the 
charm of mystery, of a gentle surprise, of an 
attractive vista. These things are an out¬ 
growth, often a revelation. It is never 
enough to plant a tree and leave it to its 
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