Tulip tree timber is not of the first quality. Professor Sargent describes it as light, soft, and brittle. Nevertheless, it is much used in America for interior work and boatbuilding, and is imported by English merchants under the name of yellow poplar or canary-wood. Mr. Elwes, who had a fine collection of different kinds of timber made into furniture and panels, says it closely resembles magnolia wood, which is not to be wondered at, seeing that the tulip tree belongs to the order Magnoliaceæ.
Few people plant tulip trees nowadays, more's the pity; for they are far more decorative than many of the conifers which have gone so far to thrust deciduous trees out of fashion. It grieved me some years ago to see a Spanish silver fir (_Abies pinsapo_), one of the least majestic of its family, planted as the memorial of a royal visit to a fine English demesne; it grieves me still when I reflect how little chance it has of thriving on a shaven lawn.
"Gives not the hawthorn-bush a sweeter shade To shepherds looking on their silly sheep, Than doth a rich-embroidered canopy To kings that fear their subjects' treachery? O, yes, it doth--a thousandfold it doth." (_Third Henry VI._ act ii. sc. 5.)
[Illustration: MAY BLOSSOM (_Cratægus oxyacantha_)]
The rose has long disputed with the lily her claim to rank as Queen of Beauty, nor is the rivalry likely to be decided in favour of either so long as human tastes differ. Howbeit, if the two claimants ever appeal to the arbitrament of war, the rose will have the advantage of big battalions, for her great clan far outnumbers that of the lilies and many of them are formidably armed. There would, indeed, be some mighty blanks in our fields and gardens if the great natural order of Rosaceæ were banned; for not only should we lose the enormous and ever-increasing variety of the rose itself and its hybrids, but the spiræas, the cinquefoils, the cotoneasters, the so-called laurels (which are not laurels at all, but evergreen plums), wherewith we deck our pleasure-grounds, would disappear also, and with them the plums, cherries, peaches, apples, pears, strawberries, and raspberries would be among the exiles, for all these and many more are families in this vast order.