The beech is not really a desirable tree to plant on a lawn or near one's dwelling, because of its persistent foliage, which clings to the twigs very late in winter, and the rustling of the wind through the dry leaves is not soothing to one's nerves, although not quite as dismal as the moaning pines. In summer, and until late in autumn, the American beech is a noble and graceful tree,--and if I may be allowed the expression, one of the cleanest of trees; its large, thin, bright-green and glossy leaves retain none of the dust and cast-off material of other trees which may be floating through the air, but are ever bright and pure. The tree has naturally wide-spreading and somewhat drooping branches, and should be given plenty of room for development when planted for the nuts or as an ornamental tree. Its leaves and the small slender branchlets (Fig. 9) are eaten with avidity by all kinds of farm animals; consequently, protection may be required until the trees have reached a hight to be safe from such depredators. Beech seedlings do not usually come into bearing in less than twenty to thirty years, but as no one in this country has ever attempted to cultivate this tree for its nuts, or search our forests for precocious and superior varieties, we have to admit that the field remains unexplored, and as barren of results as it was when our ancestors first discovered America. Every hunter, woodman, farmer and botanist who has roamed through forests where the beech trees grow, is well aware of the fact that distinct varieties are not at all rare, some having nuts twice the size of others in the same woods or groves, and it is possible and probable that some nut culturist in the near future will find time to select these choice wild varieties for cultivation and propagation. It would not, in my opinion, be beneath the dignity of our national department of agriculture, or some of its numerous costly annexes, to occasionally take into consideration the natural products of this great country, and determine, by a series of experiments, whether or no they were not worthy of attention. [Illustration: FIG. 9. BEECHNUT LEAF, BUR AND NUT.] =Insects Injurious to the Beech.=--No disease has, as yet, been known to seriously affect the beech, and as for insect enemies, it probably has a less number than any other denizen of our forests. It is true that transplanted trees, and those left exposed by cutting away protecting neighbors, are sometimes attacked by borers in the stem, branches and twigs, but these enemies naturally follow in the train of debility, it being one of the immutable economic laws of nature to hasten the demise and decomposition of the half-starved or otherwise enfeebled members of both the animal and vegetable kingdom.