nobility of the oak
casts the pitiful laurel into utter insignificance. With elms it is the
same; they are reddish with flower and bud very early in the year, the
fresh leaf is a tender green; in autumn they are sometimes one mass of
yellow.

Ashes change from almost black to a light green, then a deeper green,
and again light green and yellow. Where is the foreign evergreen in the
competition? Put side by side, competition is out of the question; you
have only to get an artist to paint the oak in its three phases to see
this. There is less to be said against the deodara than the rest, as it
is a graceful tree; but it is not English in any sense.

The point, however, is that the foreigners oust the English altogether.
Let the cedar and the laurel, and the whole host of invading evergreens,
be put aside by themselves, in a separate and detached shrubbery,
maintained for the purpose of exhibiting strange growths. Let them not
crowd the lovely English trees out of the place. Planes are much planted
now, with ill effect; the blotches where the bark peels, the leaves
which lie on the sward like brown leather, the branches wide apart and
giving no shelter to birds--in short, the whole ensemble of the plane is
unfit for our country.

It was selected for London plantations, as the Thames Embankment,
because its peeling bark was believed to protect it against the deposit
of sooty particles, and because it grows quickly. For use in London
itself it may be preferable: for semi-country seats, as the modern
houses surrounded with their own grounds assume to be, it is unsightly.
It has no association. No one has seen a plane in a hedgerow, or a wood,
or a copse. There are no fragments of English history clinging to it as
there are to the oak.

If trees of the plane class be desirable, sycamores may be planted, as
they have in a measure become acclimatised. If trees that grow fast are
required, there are limes and horse-chestnuts; the lime will run a race
with any tree. The lime, too, has a pale yellow blossom, to which bees
resort in numbers, making a pleasant hum, which seems the natural
accompaniment of summer sunshine. Its leaves are put forth early.

Horse-chestnuts, too, grow quickly and without any attention, the bloom
is familiar, and acknowledged to be fine, and in autumn the large sprays
of leaves take orange and even scarlet tints. The plane is not to be
mentioned beside either of them. Other trees as well as the plan