as not the length of life, the
girth and strength of limb, of the silver-barked canoe birch, but the
white birch will grow in a climate that fevers its northern cousin. In
spite of its delicate qualities, it is not a trivial tree, for I have
seen it with a bole of more than forty feet in length, measuring
eighteen inches through at the ground. When you set it, you are not
planting for posterity, perhaps, but will gain a speedy result; and the
fertility of the tree, when once established, will take care of the
future.

What is more charming after a summer shower than a natural cluster of
these picturesque birches, as they often chance to group themselves in
threes, like the Graces--the soft white of the trunks, with dark
hieroglyphic shadows here and there disappearing in a drapery of glossy
leaves, green above and reflecting the bark colour underneath, all
a-quiver and more like live things poised upon the russet twigs than
delicate pointed leaves! Then, when the autumn comes, how they stand out
in company with cedar bushes and sheep laurel on the hillsides to make
beautiful the winter garden, and we stand in mute admiration when these
white birches reach from a snowbank and pencil their frosty tracery
against a wall of hemlocks.

This is the simple material that has been used with such wonderful
effect. In the gardens hereabout they have flanked their alleys with the
birches, for even when fully grown their habit is more poplar-like than
spreading, and many plants, like lilies, requiring partial shade
flourish under them; while for fences and screens the trees are planted
in small groups, with either stones and ferns, or shrubs set thick
between, and the most beautiful winter fence that Evan says he has ever
seen in all his wanderings amid costly beauty was when, last winter, in
being here to measure for some plans, he came suddenly upon an informal
boundary and screen combined, over fifty feet in length, made of white
birches,--the groups of twos and threes set eight or ten feet apart, the
gaps being filled by Japanese barberries laden with their scarlet fruit.
Even now this same screen is beautiful enough with its shaded greens,
while the barberries in their blooming time, and the crimson leaf glow
of autumn, give it four distinct seasons.

The branches of the white birch being small and thickly set, they may be
trimmed at will, and windows thus opened here and there without the look
of artifice or stiffness.

F