s.

It is not only for the fruit that we are indebted to the Old World, but
also for some distinctively beautiful and most ornamental varieties of
the apple, not by any means as well known among us as they ought to be.
The nurserymen sell as an ornamental small tree a form known as
"Parkman's double-flowering crab," which produces blooms of much beauty,
like delicate little roses. Few of them, however, know of the glorious
show that the spring brings where there is a proper planting of the
Chinese and Japanese crab-apples, with some other hybrids and varieties.
To readers in New England a pilgrimage to Boston is always in order. In
the Public Gardens are superb specimens of these crab-apples from the
Orient, as well as those native to this continent, and for several weeks
in May they may be enjoyed. They _are_ enjoyed by the Bostonians, who
are in this, as in many things, better served by their authorities than
is any other American city. What other city, for instance, gives its
people such a magnificent spring show of hyacinths, tulips, daffodils
and the like?

It is at the wonderful Arnold Arboretum, that Mecca of tree-lovers just
outside of Boston and really within its superbly managed park system,
that the greatest show of the "pyrus family," as the apples and pears
are botanically called, may be found. Here have been gathered the lovely
blooming trees of all the hardy world, to the delight of the eye and the
nose, and the education of the mind. To me the most impressive of all
was a wonderful Siberian crab (one must look for _Pyrus baccata_ on the
label, as the Arboretum folks are not in love with "common" names) close
by the little greenhouses. Its round head was purely white, with no
hint of pink, and the mass of bloom that covered it was only punctuated
by the green of the expanding leaves. The especial elegance of this crab
was in its whiteness, and that elegance was not diminished by the later
masses of little yellow and red, almost translucent, fruits.

A somewhat smaller tree is commonly called the Chinese flowering apple,
and its early flowers remind one strongly of the beauty of our own wild
crab, as they are deeper in color than most of the crabs, being almost
coral-red in bud. This "spectabilis," as it is familiarly called, is a
gem, as it opens the season of the apple blooms with its burst of pink
richness.

The beauty-loving Japanese have a festival at the time of the
cherry-blooming--and it is alt