THE VLIITUE OF SYCAMORE.
Yet sycamore is very sparsely planted. It grows like a weed. Any garden with a sycamore in it will boast, say, five hundred seedlings within a year. It grows fast, for no tree in the list converts sunshine into cellulose on a greater scale. Its leaf surface is bigger than any tree's, and the roots run down to the depths as well as out to the side at an astonishing speed. It is almost as difficult to get to the end of the tap root of a young tree as, say, of a sea holly. Many of our amateur, and Government, afforesters are planting quite a large quantity of beech (which is popular in the proportion of one to four in conifer plantations) and ash, which is one of the most useful of all out-of-door woods ; but I never heard of anyone specializing in sycamores. Per- haps one reason is that most gardeners hate the tree, for the greed of its roots and the nuisance of its seedlings. But we should at least recognize its inner virtues.
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