trees will have grown to a goodly size. The Locust should be transplanted just as the buds are ready to burst; they should be protected by frames as soon as set. Good cases may be made at a trifling expense, by taking strips of inch and a half stuff, three inches wide, and nine or ten feet long, sharpen the lower end, and drive it into the ground four or five inches, and in a box formed about the tree let crosspieces be nailed at the top. Be careful that the tree does not rub upon the case, although the wound will heal over, yet in the first high wind, it will be apt to break off at that point. This tree is rather peculiar in that respect.
The Locust was introduced to Europe by a Frenchman named Robin. From him the genus (Robinia) took its name. There are but four species belonging to it, and they are all indigenous to North America, viz.:
Robinia pseudacacia (common Locust). R. viscosa, confined to the southwestern parts of the Alleghany Mountains, bearing rose-colored blossoms and being even more ornamental than the former; it is equally hardy, and if it could be introduced among us would form a valuable addition. Locusts nowhere appear to a better advantage than when planted in clumps of six or eight on a lawn, and if the R. pseudacacia and R. viscosa were contiguous, blending the pure white and the rose-colored blossoms, the world might be challenged for a finer effect.
The R. hispida (rose-acacia of our gardens) is a highly ornamental shrub, its branches are, like the moss-rose, covered with minute spines, which give it a fine appearance. A fourth species is said to exist in the basin of Red River. The favorable opinion here expressed of the Locust, will remove any impression of prejudice when we say, that they are altogether too much cultivated. Our forests are full of magnificent shade-trees whose claims can never, all things considered, be equalled by the Locust.
Elm (Ulmus Americana), commonly called White Elm. Of the four species of elms indigenous to the United
States, but two are particularly worth notice, the White Elm, and Slippery Elm (U. pulva). But the former of these is so incomparably the superior, that it should be selected wherever it can be had. It attains a height of one hundred feet, is very long-lived, grows more and more beautiful with age, its long branches droop over, forming graceful pendulous extremities; and no one who has seen the Boston Mall, or the New Haven elms, or those scattered along the villages of Connecticut, will think that Michaux exaggerated in pronouncing this tree to be the most magnificent vegetable production of the Temperate Zone. It is unquestionably the monarch among shade-trees, as superior to the oak for avenues and streets, as the oak is to it for parks and forests. The great main-street of every village should be lined with White Elms, set at distances of fifty feet, and Locusts between to supply an immediate shade, and to be removed so soon as the slower-growing elm has spread enough to dispense with them.
The Maple.—The following varieties are in our forests, and are beautiful shade-trees for the borders of farms, door-yards, public squares, avenues, streets, etc. The Sugar Maple (Acer saccharinum), White Maple (A. eriocarpum), Red Maple (A. rubrum). This last variety shows beautiful red flowers before its leaves put out in spring, and, like the sugar-maple, brilliant scarlet leaves in autumn. The maple is a beautiful tree of fine form, the leaves of the different varieties are variously shaped and all beautiful, it is free from disease and noxious insects.
Besides these, the ash, oak, tulip, beech and walnut, are all worthy of being transferred to our streets. Shade-trees for door-yards, and public squares, and pleasure-grounds, require a separate notice, as in some material respects they should be differently treated.
We warmly recommend in lining streets, that each alternate tree only be locust.
It is better for effect that each street, or at least continuous