If your grounds are large enough for a tree that will grow a hundred feet high or more, plant an oak. (See plate 69). The grandest of American oaks is the white oak (Q. alba), and this is also the nearest equivalent of the English, which generally fails here. But the white oak is almost impossible to transplant and very slow. The quickest growing oaks are the pin, red, and scarlet.

Plant American beech and linden in preference to their English equivalents. Plant red and sugar maples in preference to the sycamore maple.

The following characteristic American trees will grow better here than in England, and have often attained more than one hundred feet or one hundred years: Honey locust, black walnut, pin oak, red oak, black oak, white oak (from seed).

The following cannot be expected to last a century. Birches, elms, poplars, willows, ailanthus, catalpa, box elder, silver maple, English hawthorn, or any kind of chestnut.

There are many ancient trees in Britain that seem thoroughly at home, but they were originally foreigners, e. g., chestnuts, linden, larch, Norway spruce, and service tree. But practically all came from a related climate — that of Europe. A thousand years from now many foreign trees will be naturalized in America, and practically all will be from the Far East. But America will never "find herself" until her own trees are everywhere in the majority*

* For a list of books on trees see the end of Chapter XIV.