The basswoods are very easily grown from seeds. Each fruit contains one or two vigorous seeds. As they are eaten by no animal, and ;Ire well protected from drying, and as their leafy parachutes adapt them to distribution by the wind, it is not strange that lindens often win in a race with oaks, hickories, and maples. Sargent says that in the virgin forests of America the bass woods, scattered among other broad-leaved trees, often formed two-thirds of the entire growth.
Another easy mode of propagation is by cuttings. A lusty basswood twig grows in moist soil almost as readily as a twig of willow. One of the finest specimen trees 1 know grew from a walking stick cut in the woods and thoughtlessly stuck in the ground when the rambler reached home. Ornamental varieties are propagated by grafting cions on native seedling storks.
Lindens are quick-growing trees. They endure with patience the severest pruning. These two facts have long commended them to deners, who cut them with impunity into figures, geometrical and gro tesque, that are characteristic of the formal garden. The beauty of their natural forms has also been appreciated. Lindens are planted as speci men trees, for shade, and for luxuriant foliage effects in landscape gar dening. The most famous avenue of them in Europe is probably ''Unter
den Linden" in Berlin, though in stature, these trees come far short of the expectations of the average tourist. Avenues of lindens, called lime trees. are comnnm features of the landscape in England. The old Greeks loved the tree for its beauty, and for its blossoms. What (lid not the hives of Ilybla and Ilymettus owe to the bloom of linden trees? The Romans loved it. and gave it an Inmored place in their literature. In the north, the same feeling was native. Limilens, the SNved ish botanist, had his name from a line linden tree, \\lienhis peasant father rose to the dignity of a surname. Carl Linn (Charles of the Linden) it was at first: then Condus Lin n:ens. when he became pro fessor at mid the father of John (?erard discourses very quaintly upon the linden tree in his " Grete I or General1 Historie of Plants," published in England in " The male tree is unknown to he says. \Ve smile at the notion that there are male and female trees is this family ; hilt we NV011d ev at the accuracy of observation evinced by one who lived and wrote the science of liutany was born. Evidently Master Oentrd had a pair uf eyes, and he told. well what he saw.