Monday, July 07, 2014
Xenodendrophobia
A.J. Downing (1815-1852), "Shade-Trees in Cities," Rural Essays (New York: Leavitt & Allen, 1856), pp. 311-318 (at 313, on Ailanthus altissima):
Related post: Aliens.
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But we confess openly, that our crowning objection to this petted Chinaman or Tartar, who has played us so falsely, is a patriotic objection. It is that he has drawn away our attention from our own more noble native American trees, to waste it on this miserable pig-tail of an Indiaman. What should we think of the Italians, if they should forswear their own orange-trees and figs, pomegranates and citrons, and plant their streets and gardens with the poison sumac-tree of our swamps? And what must a European arboriculturist think, who travels in America, delighted and astonished at the beauty of our varied and exhaustless forests—the richest in the temperate zone, to see that we neither value nor plant them, but fill our lawns and avenues with the cast-off nuisances of the gardens of Asia and Europe?Hat tip: Eric Thomson.
Related post: Aliens.
