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Page 3
While this labor is going on you can begin the planting of trees.
To this task I would earnestly ask careful attention. Your house
can be built in a summer; but it requires a good part of a century
to build the best trees into anything like perfection.
The usual tendency is to plant much too closely. Observe well-
developed trees, and see how wide a space they require. There is
naturally an eager wish for shade as soon as possible, and a
desire to banish from surroundings an aspect of bareness. These
purposes can, it is true, often be accomplished by setting out
more trees at first than could mature, and by taking out one and
another from time to time when they begin to interfere with each
other's growth. One symmetrical, noble tree, however, is certainly
worth more than a dozen distorted, misshapen specimens. If given
space, every kind of tree and shrub will develop its own
individuality; and herein lies one of their greatest charms. If
the oak typifies manhood, the drooping elm is equally suggestive
of feminine grace, while the sugar-maple, prodigal of its rich
juices, tasselled bloom, and winged seeds, reminds us of
wholesome, cheerful natures. Even when dying, its foliage takes on
the earliest and richest hues of autumn.
The trees about our door become in a sense our companions. They
appeal to the eye, fancy, and feelings of different people
differently. Therefore I shall leave the choice of arboreal
associates to those who are to plant them--a choice best guided by
observation of trees. Why should you not plant those you like the
best, those which are the most congenial?
A few suggestions, however, may be useful. I would advise the
reader not to be in too great haste to fill up his grounds. While
there are trees to which his choice reverts almost instantly,
there are probably many other beautiful varieties with which he is
not acquainted. If he has kept space for the planting of something
new every spring and fall, he has done much to preserve his zest
in his rural surroundings, and to give a pleasing direction to his
summer observation. He is ever on the alert to discover trees and
shrubs that satisfy his taste.
During the preparation of this book I visited the grounds of Mr.
A. S. Fuller, at Kidgewood, N. J., and for an hour or two I broke
the tenth commandment in spite of myself. I was surrounded by
trees from almost every portion of the northern temperate zone,
from Oregon to Japan; and in Mr. Fuller I had a guide whose
sympathy with his arboreal pets was only equalled by his knowledge
of their characteristics. All who love trees should possess his
book entitled "Practical Forestry." If it could only be put into
the hands of law-makers, and they compelled to learn much of its
contents by heart, they would cease to be more or less conscious
traitors to their country in allowing the destruction of forests.
They might avert the verdict of the future, and prevent posterity
from denouncing the irreparable wrong which is now permitted with
impunity. The Arnolds of to-day are those who have the power to
save the trees, yet fail to do so.
Japan appears to be doing as much to adorn our lawns and gardens
as our drawing-rooms; and from this and other foreign lands much
that is beautiful or curious is coming annually to our shores. At
the same time I was convinced of the wisdom of Mr. Fuller's
appreciation of our native trees. In few instances should we have
to go far from home to find nearly all that we wanted in beautiful
variety--maples, dogwoods, scarlet and chestnut oaks, the liquid-
amber, the whitewood or tulip-tree, white birch, and horn-beam, or
the hop-tree; not to speak of the evergreens and shrubs indigenous
to our forests. Perhaps it is not generally known that the
persimmon, so well remembered by old campaigners in Virginia, will
grow readily in this latitude. There are forests of this tree
around Paterson, N. J., and it has been known to endure twenty-
seven degrees below zero. It is a handsome tree at any season, and
its fruit in November caused much straggling from our line of
march in the South. Then there is our clean-boled, graceful beech,
whose smooth white bark has received so many tender confidences.
In the neighborhood of a village you will rarely find one of these
trees whereon is not linked the names of lovers that have sat
beneath the shade. Indeed I have found mementoes of trysts or
rambles deep in the forest of which the faithful beech has kept
the record until the lovers were old or dead. On an immense old
beech in Tennessee there is an inscription which, while it
suggests a hug, presents to the fancy an experience remote from a
lover's embrace. It reads, "D. Boone cilled bar on tree."
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