Where are our October forests, of which all the world, both artists and artisans, recognize the beauty, when purple and gold, silver and scarlet, wave their banners to show what " monstrosities " they are? Is beauty a thing of season only, or is that which is beautiful in October, charming also in August? A recognition of the beauty of color in flowers belongs to the whole human race. Is color less beautiful when it comes in leaves? Is the brilliant tint of Jacqueminot rose to be desired, and the wine-like ruby of the Japan Maple or the Prunus Pissardi to be condemned? Has the exquisite color of Abies pungens no charm, and is it a huge mistake of nature? Green is not the only color nature has given us, but in this color alone, she has given us all the shades which our author condemns. The light golden tint of the Liquidambar stands in our forests by the side of the darker Oak, and on the Alleghanies, the silver Poplars throw up the white of their leaves against a darker back ground.

Thirty years ago I planted an avenue of Tulip trees. In the spring the new growth of these is almost the color of the rising sun which gleams through them, while in the middle of the avenue appears the more sombre foliage of an old White Oak, a remnant of primeval forest, and which was doubtless one hundred years old when Columbus discovered America. On my lawn the light tint of the Virgilia mingles with the dark shade of the Purple Beech. All these contrasts give me pleasure; is my taste vitiated and is nature astray? I know that I am right, because I admire the perfect skill and taste of One who has strewn color with lavish hand over our meadows and in our forests. And having thus nature with me I may, without presumption, assert that any landscape artist is unworthy of his vocation who does not recognize the value of color in landscape adornment.

I have not touched the question of form, but our author must be wrong when he stamps as unnatural all conical forms or drooping forms or dwarf forms, and says that, "fortunately no eye has been horrified by the spectacle of a wood full of these monstrosities".

I would like to ride with him from Baltimore to Washington or from New York to Albany, and see the native conical trees which are strewn there in so great profusion. I would like to walk with him through the White Mountains, and see the fantastic shapes which the Birch assumes, first shooting up straight for twenty feet, then the whole top shooting off almost at right angles, or else bending over in the form of a Roman arch. I would like him to see a forest of American Larch; and above all, I would like to have had him with me in a walk I once took through a tropical forest, that he might see the fantastic shapes which many trees took there.

The general denunciation of dwarf forms is also wrong; for there is no reason why the graceful softness of the dwarf White Pine, or the delicate refinement of the dwarf Hemlock, or the dark beauty of the Spiraea crispifolia, should be contemned because they never reach one-tenth the size of their brethren of the same family. Creeping Juniper and Red Cedar are growing as brother and sister in the same forest, and in many families there are the little brother and the tall brother, both of mature age.

The position of our writer is sound, "that our own trees, as single specimens, have no superiors in grace, dignity and nobility of expression;" but 1 would contend that European trees of the same families are fully their equals, and are not exotics in any other sense than that trees indigenous to Ohio are exotic in Massachusetts. For arboriculture Europe is as much a part of America, in the same latitude, as the west side of Lake Superior is of the east side.

For picturesque effect the American Beech is desirable by the unique arrangement of its branches, but in all else the European Beech is the noblest, even when planted in America. I allude now to large trees which are under my eye. So it is with many other species. American deciduous trees, fifty years old, within my observation, are not less healthy and vigorous than foreign trees of the same species. Our writer then states that American trees lend themselves more readily to the production of "broad effects." What are broad effects? Is it massive planting? and if so, cannot that effect be produced as well by any of the vigorous European trees? He proceeds - "In every attempt at landscape gardening worthy of the name, the individual tree has no value of its own".

I happened to be reading this while riding on the Pennsylvania railroad, and lifting my eyes, saw a mass of forest, with a grand old Elm standing out from it like a leader in front of a host. This tree certainly had an individual value. If individual trees have no value of their own for land-cape gardening, why does the true landscape-artist select them so carefully? Their very individuality is their value. By it he produces the effect he desires. Our writer asserts that " native trees, when planted together, compose better than when planted with foreign forms." What is meant by "compose?" Is it not, like 'broad effects," a generality, which sounds well to the uninitiated, but conveys no meaning to the intelligent landscape artist, who composes his scene as the painter composes his picture, by the perfect adaptation of his individual forms, giving them such colors as nature gives, without thinking that he spoils his picture.

My trees have been my friends for fifty years, and under their branches my children and grandchildren have played. They are all vigorous in root and foliage, whether born in Europe or America, and they all charm me, whether golden or purple, whether spreading or conical, whether drooping or creeping. I think their effect is "broad," I think they all "compose" well, and I should be unwilling to consider any of them " monstrosities".