A resolution of the Board of 23d September demands my judgment as to the advisability of importing, or otherwise obtaining, trees this season, and a[107] communication subsequently received from the Committee on Trees enlarges the scope of the inquiry.

It is impossible to form an estimate which will have any value, of the numbers of the different sorts of trees which will be wanted for the Park, until the plan is finally determined on. But it may be supposed that in the greater part of the Park the natural characteristics of the ground will be accepted and turned to account; and an opinion may be expressed as to the style of planting which would best comport with these characteristics, and of the sorts of trees which this style will require. It will probably best meet the purpose had in view by the board in calling upon me for a report on the subject, if I state the conclusions to which I should myself thus arrive, and indicate the number of the different sorts of trees which would seem to me to be indispensable, at the very outset of the planting.

In the rugged portion, comprising nearly three-fourths of the surface of the first section, the stiffer forms of evergreen trees will best accord with, and set off, the picturesque rocks which are the marked feature of the landscape. The Hemlock and Black Spruce will probably be preferred as the predominating trees, wherever it is practicable to supply and retain the deep, loose, rich, black soil which they require; and on the steeper slopes and higher ground, the Norway Spruce. On portions of thin soil, over, and in the clefts of, masses of rock, the European Larch, Scotch Fir and American Arbor-vitae, and in the more sheltered low-ground, especially if a portion of this is occupied by a pond, as proposed by the chief-engineer, the Deciduous Cypress, the White Cedar or swamp Arbor-vitae and the Red and Black American Larch or Hackmatack would both harmonize with the scenery and be most sure to flourish. Most of these trees will be wanted in large quantity elsewhere in the Park, but here they are likely to be employed as the groundwork of the planting, various other trees being used, each in smaller numbers, to heighten local effects.

On many accounts it will be found best to plant this part of the Park earliest; and as it will be an advantage to have had the trees in a nursery near at hand, for at least a year before setting them in the position they are intended to occupy permanently, I think it would be safe to obtain for the purpose, as soon as may be found convenient, at least 3,000 Norway Spruce, 3,000 Hemlock, 500 Black Spruce, 500 Larch, 500 Arbor-vitae and 150 of each of the others I have mentioned.

In the transition from this rugged ground to the table-land of the second section, the softer evergreens will be appropriately used and 300 of the White Pine and 150 each of the Scotch, Corsican, Pinaster, and Cembra Pines may be safely purchased at once.

Nearly a third of the second and third sections is now occupied by a young grove of Deciduous trees, and no large number of any particular sort will be needed to be introduced among these. The artificial style will probably be adopted, or at least approached, as indicated on the plan of the Chief Engineer, in the eastern parts of these sections, for which choice lawn and avenue[108] trees will be wanted, and in the western part, evergreens of the sorts suggested for the first section will be most appropriate. European Larch, Arbor-vitaes of different varieties, the Silver Fir and others of the smaller Fir, will best grow on the rocky terrace west of the reservoir. The park soil seems particularly obnoxious to the Balsam Fir, not one of twenty specimens growing upon it being in sound condition.

In the fourth section there is again much fine young wood of the native deciduous species admirably grouped by nature. The largest and finest trees of our climate can, however, be employed here in great numbers—Hickories, Oaks, Elms, Beeches, Chestnuts, Ashes and Maples especially. The same trees will be wanted also for groups and detached planting on the lawn-like ground which will probably be made on the gentle slopes and level portions of the second and third sections. Those varieties of these species, therefore, which are most uniformly healthy, simple in outline, and dense and retentive of foliage, may be safely obtained in large quantities. I should think that at least 1000 of each would be needed next autumn.

At the first planting season after any portion of the drives or footpaths are laid out, such shrubs as the following (the Superintendent of Planting would doubtless add largely to the list) will be wanted in large quantity. Several thousand of each may be procured at once with unquestionable advantage: Honeysuckle, Kalmia Latifolia (the Laurel of New England), Dogwood, Privet, Hawthorn, Buckthorn, Osage Orange, Magnolia Glauca, Obovata, Conspicua, and all the varieties which are certainly hardy and healthy in the climate; Lilacs, Dwarf Horse-chestnut, Missouri Currant, Virginia Fringe, Spirea, Syringa, Hydrangea-quercifolia, Viburnum, Althea, Acacias, Indigo-bush, Deutzia Scabra, Weigela Rosea, Japan Quince, Daphne Mezereum, Burning-bush, Laburnum, and every smooth-leaved evergreen that will surely endure the climate.

I have confined myself to an enumeration of trees, which, in my judgment, will be indispensable to at least the numbers given, merely as a basis of the landscape planting; which will, therefore, be the first required for use, and which it will be an important advantage to the landscape-gardener to have growing in a nursery on the park. If there is yet time for the preparation of the ground, and for proper painstaking in their selection, I should strongly recommend them to be procured this season, and at all events I should advise that ground be drained, fertilized and trenched, in order to receive them early in the spring. Besides getting those I have mentioned, it would be well to select immediately the finest trees which can be found, at a moderate price, in any nurseries which can conveniently be visited for the purpose, to the number of at least 1000 Mountain Ash; 1000 Dogwood; 1000 Sweet Gum; 1000 Horse-chestnut; 500 Linden; 200 Silver Poplar; 200 Weeping Willow; 200 Button-Wood; 100 Lombardy poplar.

The Committee on Trees desire me to state what my experience has been in the importation of trees. It has not been extensive: I have imported a few[109] lawn and forest trees, perhaps ten thousand seedlings and small evergreens, and six thousand deciduous trees, mostly fruit trees, from four to ten feet in height. The latter were packed in bales, with dry moss, and came by sailing vessels; the evergreens and choicer trees in cases, and mostly by steamer. The only losses of consequence were in one or two cases of seedling-evergreens coming by sailing vessels. Otherwise, the damage the trees suffered on the way was less than usually occurs with those coming from our own nurseries—less care being here taken in packing than is customary, at least in packing for exportation, in Europe. The whole number of trees seriously injured, from all causes connected with transportation, has not in my experience exceeded five per cent. of all I have imported. This is very much less than the usual estimate; but it is my impression that the heavy losses often reported, are in consequence of want of forethought in making the arrangements, or perhaps of an ill-directed economy. I suspect also that some of our nurserymen are inclined, from interested motives, to exaggerate their own losses by sea. Mr. George G. Sheppard is employed as a broker by many of the largest American nurserymen, and sometimes, I believe, as a factor, by the European nurserymen. His importation of seedlings and larger trees amounted, last spring, to over 1000 packages, containing more than a million young trees; and he states that to the best of his knowledge the loss in transportation did not exceed 2 per centum.

On trees 3 to 5 feet in length, the total of ordinary expenses of importation, including all items, from the European inland nursery to delivery anywhere in New York, I have found to be, by sailing vessels, from 3 to 6 cents a tree, by steamer 5 to 10 cents.

I have compiled and will attach hereto a schedule of the catalogue prices for a considerable variety of trees and shrubs, or large commercial nurserymen, respectively, in France, England, Scotland and the United States. The customary discount to wholesale purchasers is, I think, generally larger in America than Europe. As many of our nurserymen are very intelligent and well-informed persons, and employ a large capital, it must be taken for granted that competition among themselves will have fixed the price of such trees as it is worth while for them to import at all, not excessively above the average cost of importation, all things considered. It must be an accidental and temporary exception if trees, which are ordinarily in much demand here, can be imported by those not regularly engaged in the business much below what they are sold for at our nurseries. The nursery business, however, I have found peculiarly irregular, and if one is to plant largely of any special tree, it is always worth while to make extended enquiry for it. The reason is, that the period of their growth in which trees are readily saleable is limited; so that they may be considered somewhat as a perishable commodity. Local demands are capricious, also, and a nurseryman is thus often threatened with a dead stock of a few particular sorts which therefore he will dispose of at less than ordinary rates. Again, a large demand of a peculiarly local character for certain sorts of trees stimulates a much[110] more wholesale propagation of them; and, if this demand is continuous, the local nurseries will surely be able to supply these particular sorts at less prices than they can be sold at elsewhere. In the peach-growing districts of New Jersey, for instance, peach trees, such as are ordinarily sold by nurserymen elsewhere at $20 a hundred, are supplied at $6. In England, where the demand for peach trees must be extremely limited, they would be found in any quantity at but few nurseries, and (at Sawbridgeworth) the catalogue price is 3s. 6d. sterling each, or more than twelve times what it is in New Jersey. The Osage Orange, being extensively required as a prairie hedge-plant, is sold at half the price in Illinois that it is in this vicinity. The Larch, which is purchased by the million for plantations on highland estates, is supplied in Scotland at 3s. 6d. a thousand. The lowest price in the United States is $40 a thousand.

It will probably be found that the trees which are ordinarily used in the United States as shade and road trees, and which consequently are imported, or propagated, extensively by our nurserymen, can be obtained from the American nurseries better than from the foreign. These are the trees which will be wanted in largest quantity, and which it will be most important to get of good size, well furnished, and in healthy, thrifty condition.

On an examination of the stock of our large nurseries, it will be found that each has an advantage in certain particulars, and by making a selection from each, of the best, a fine collection can be much better obtained than by contracting with anyone or two for the assortment required. The most healthy and well formed trees should be selected with, in general, but little regard for size, and the Superintendent of Planting, or some person or persons instructed by him, should oversee the taking up and packing of the trees as well as their reception and replanting. The season for transplanting is short, nurserymen are therefore driven with business, and often obliged to employ careless and reckless persons. Trees are, in consequence, frequently, and, I may say, in my own experience, generally, seriously damaged in value, in the process of taking up and removal.

A considerable importation of evergreens will probably be found unavoidable. Our nurseries have extremely small stocks of a very great variety of evergreens, which some of the European nurseries keep on hand in much larger quantity, because they are required on precisely such occasions as this, in the planting of a park or garden of the first class (an undertaking much more common there than here), as well as by a class of wealthy amateurs, not yet found in the United States, who form collections of evergreens, or winter-gardens in their private grounds. The greatest number of varieties of evergreen trees and shrubs to be found in the catalogue of any nurseryman in the United States does not, I believe, exceed eighty—some of the foreign nurseries have eight hundred.

For similar reasons, European nurserymen propagate a better assortment of varieties of deciduous trees than ours. The following, for instance, are the largest numbers of varieties of the species named which I find in the American and in the European catalogues:—

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It may be true that many of the varieties named in the European catalogues have no especially valuable qualities and that many of them are unsuited to our climate (though in most cases, this remains to be tested), but it is also true that with the addition of those which cannot be got here, the gardening artist has it in his power to produce landscape effects with a degree of precision and delicacy which without them it would be hopeless for him to attempt.

An extended list therefore can be made of both deciduous and evergreen trees of this class, of which a number—say from ten to one hundred of each—must almost necessarily be obtained from Europe, and as many of them can only be got of small size; and as it is, especially with evergreens, very much safer and every way cheaper to import trees of small size, it is desirable that such order should be given at the earliest moment after the list could be prepared, so that the trees may be had for planting in the Park nursery next spring; by the following spring most of them would probably be wanted for permanent planting.