A Plea for the Juniper 
THE GNOMON OF DECLINING DAY 
horizon or the house wall, 
in relief against a copse or 
hillside, it is a blithesome 
possession; the happy sen¬ 
tinel of the rustling woods 
and sunny lanes, the tur¬ 
ret ed keep of humble 
homes and, in its wilder 
moments, the misshapen 
vanguard of the sea-swept 
dunes, everywhere at home 
and everywhere fitting in 
peculiarly with natural 
effects and the works of 
man. But though there is 
evidence here and there 
that our landscape garden¬ 
ers are beginning to see the 
light, they have left it out 
of their home effects while 
often trying in vain to get 
an evergreen background 
through the agency of other natives far from 
tractable. Indeed for the most part the more 
northern spruces and arbor-vities often have 
little compatibility. They look out of place in 
the new, and, if injured, are clearly out of 
A P PRESS ED AND THIN AS IF SOME AUSTERE 
LOMBARDY POPLAR 
place in the older gardens. The advance 
of cultivation too often means their destruc¬ 
tion, and their natural symmetry and life are 
not dependable. Nor do the pines, the 
larches, nor even the hemlocks, glorious as 
the last named are, fit in with all home con¬ 
ditions as does the Juniper, for none of the 
other evergreens are so common a feature of 
our country life as to call forth the associa¬ 
tions, practical and poetic, that one connects 
with the Junipers. 
Judged by its association with American 
life in the open, therefore, this tree meets 
all tests. For much of our countryside, poor 
or rich, the Juniper is the gnomon of declin¬ 
ing day. Its pointed shadows trail over 
furrowed slope and grassy lawn, across beach 
and swamp, telling the hours, while on the 
ridge silhouetted against a burning sunset its 
purplish ebon spires form a poetic frame to 
nature’s last gorgeous spectacle, and one that 
in the winter possesses even rarer beauties 
than when the companion trees are lush with 
the leafage of July. And its contrasts! 
What is more striking on our seacoast than 
the gnarled and twisted effects of the seashore 
cedar, telling of the storm and stress of the 
gale, the very personification of the sea’s 
rage as well as its own daring. It is there 
on the wind-worn beaches, wet by the spume, 
that it reaches its most extreme form in the 
