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A Year among the Trees;
OR,
THE WOODS AND BY-WAYS OF NEW ENGLAND.

By WILSON FLAGG,

AUTHOR OF “STUDIES IN THE FIELD AND FOREST,” “A YEAR WITH THE BIRDS,” “HALCYON DAYS,” ETC.

The temples of the gods made desolate,

They leave the earth to curses born of art;

Degenerate man resumes the bow and quiver,

And beauty sleeps until another dawn.

BOSTON:

EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING CO.

1890.

COPYRIGHT, 1881,

BY ESTES AND LAURIAT.

BOSTON.

COPYRIGHT, 1889,

BY EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING CO.,

BOSTON.

INDEX.

PREFACE.

The matter contained in this volume is taken wholly from “The Woods and By-Ways of New England,” omitting all that is published in Volume I., and which has no special reference to trees. This volume, beside the particular description of species, treats of the value and beauty of trees and forests, of their climatic influence as purifiers of the atmosphere, of their relations to water, to electricity, to temperature, to the soil, to shade and salubrity, to birds and insects, to ornament, and to poetry and fable.

THE WOODS.

A YEAR AMONG THE TREES;

OR,

THE WOODS AND BY-WAYS OF NEW ENGLAND.

THE PRIMITIVE FOREST.

When the Pilgrim first landed on the coast of America, the most remarkable feature of its scenery that drew his attention, next to the absence of towns and villages, was an almost universal forest. A few openings were to be seen near the rivers,—immense peat-meadows covered with wild bushes and gramineous plants, interspersed with little wooded islets, and bordered on all sides by a rugged, silent, and dreary desert of woods. Partial clearings had likewise been made by the Indians for their rude hamlets, and some spaces had been opened by fire. But the greater part of the country was darkened by an umbrageous mass of trees and shrubbery, in whose gloomy shades were ever present dangers and bewilderment for the traveller. In these solitudes the axe of the woodman had never been heard, and the forest for thousands of years had been subject only to the spontaneous action of natural causes. To men who had been accustomed to the open and cultivated plains of Europe, this waste of woods, those hills without prospect, that pathless wilderness, and its inhabitants as savage as the aspect of the country, must have seemed equally sublime and terrible.

But when the colonists had cut roads through this desert, planted landmarks over the country, built houses upon its clearings, opened the hill-tops to a view of the surrounding prospect, and cheered the solitude by some gleams of civilization, then came the naturalist and the man of science to survey the aspect and productions of this new world. And when they made their first excursions over its rugged hills and through its wooded vales, we can easily imagine their transports at the sight of its peculiar scenery. How must the early botanist have exulted over this grand assemblage of plants, that bore resemblance to those of Europe only as the wild Indian resembles the fair-haired Saxon! Everywhere some rare herb put forth flowers at his feet, and trees of magnificent height and slender proportions intercepted his progress by their crowded numbers. The wood was so generally uninterrupted, that it was difficult to find a summit from which he could obtain a lookout of any considerable extent; but occasional natural openings exposed floral scenes that must have seemed like the work of enchantment. In the wet meadows were deep beds of moss of the finest verdure, which had seldom been disturbed by man or brute. On the uplands were vast fields of the checkerberry plant, social, like the European heath, and loaded half the year with its spicy scarlet fruit. Every valley presented some unknown vegetation to his sight, and every tangled path led him into a new scene of beauties and wonders. It must have seemed to him, when traversing this strange wilderness, that he had entered upon a new earth, in which nature had imitated, without repeating, the productions of his native East.

Along the level parts of New England and the adjacent country, wherever the rivers were languid in their course, and partially inundated their banks in the spring, were frequent natural meadows, not covered by trees,—the homes of the robin and the bobolink before the white man had opened to them new fields for their subsistence. In the borders of these openings, the woods in early summer were filled with a sweet and novel minstrelsy, contrasting delightfully with the silence of the deeper forest. The notes of the birds were wild variations of those which were familiar to the Pilgrim in his native land, and inspired him with delight amidst the all-prevailing sadness of woods that presented on the one hand scenes both grand and beautiful, and teemed on the other with horrors which only the pioneer of the desert could describe.

The whole continent, at the time of its discovery, from the coast to the Great American Desert, was one vast hunting-ground, where the nomadic inhabitants obtained their subsistence from the chase of countless herds of deer and buffalo. At this period the climate had not been modified by the operations of man upon the forest. It was less variable than now, and the temperature corresponded more definitely with the degrees of latitude. The winter was a season of more invariable cold, less interrupted by thaws. In New England and the other Northern States, snow fell in the early part of December, and lay on the ground until April, when the spring opened suddenly, and was not followed by those vicissitudes that mark the season at the present era. Such was the true forest climate. May-day came garlanded with flowers, lighted with sunshine, and breathing the odors of a true spring. It was then easy to foretell what the next season would be from its character the preceding years. Autumn was not then, as we have often seen it, extended into winter. The limits of each season were more precisely defined. The continent was annually visited by the Indian summer, that came, without fail, immediately after the fall of the leaf and the first hard frosts of November. This short season of mild and serene weather, the halcyon period of autumn, has disappeared with the primitive forest.

The original circumstances of the country have been entirely revolutionized. The American climate is now in that transition state which has been caused by opening the space to the winds from all quarters by operations which have not yet been carried to their extreme limit. These changes of the surface have probably increased the mean annual temperature of the whole country by permitting the direct rays of the sun to act upon a wider area, while they have multiplied those eccentricities of climate that balk our weather calculations at all seasons. There are still in many parts of the country large tracts of wood which have not been greatly disturbed. From the observation of these, and from descriptions by different writers of the last century, we may form a pretty fair estimate of the character and aspect of the forest before it was invaded by civilized man.

During this primitive condition of the country, the forest, having been left for centuries entirely to nature, would have formed a very intelligible geological chart. If we could have taken an extensive view of the New England forest, before any considerable inroads had been made by the early settlers, from an elevated stand on the coast, we should have beheld a dense and almost universal covering of trees. From this stand we might also trace the geological character of the soil, and its different degrees of fertility, dryness, and moisture, by the predominance of certain species and the absence of others. The undulations upon this vast ocean of foliage would come from the elevations and depressions of the ground; for the varying heights of the different assemblages of species upon the same level could hardly be perceived by a distant view. The lowest parts of this wooded region were at that period covered very generally with a crowded growth of the northern cypress, or white cedar. These evergreen swamps would constitute the darkest ground of the picture. The deep alluvial tracts would be known by the deciduous character of their woods and their lighter and brighter verdure, and the dry, sandy and diluvial plains and the gravelly hills and eminences by their white birches and tremulous poplars, their stunted pitch-pines and dwarfish junipers. For a century past the woods have been cleared mostly from the alluvial tracts; and the oaks, the hickories, the chestnuts, and other hard-wood trees, the primitive occupants of the rich and deep soils, have been succeeded in great measure by trees of softer wood, that originally grew on inferior land. The wooded aspect of the country cannot any longer be considered, as formerly, a good geological chart, except in some parts of Maine and the adjoining British Provinces.

One of the conditions most remarkable in a primitive forest is the universal dampness of the ground. The second growth of timber, especially if the surface were entirely cleared, stands upon a drier foundation. This greater dryness is caused by the absence of those vast accumulations of vegetable débris that rested on the ground before it was disturbed. A greater evaporation also takes place under the second growth, because the trees are of inferior size and stand more widely apart. Another character of a primitive forest is the crowded assemblage of trees and their undergrowth, causing great difficulty in traversing it. Innumerable straggling vines, many of them covered with thorns, like the green-brier, intercept our way. Immense trunks of trees, prostrated by hurricanes, lie in our path, and beds of moss of extreme thickness cover a great part of the surface, saturated with moisture. The trees are also covered with mosses, generated by the shade and dampness; and woody vines, like the climbing fern, the poison ivy, and the ampelopsis, fastened upon their trunks and trailing from their branches, make the wood in many places like the interior of a grotto. Above all, the traveller would notice the absence of those pleasant wood-paths that intersect all our familiar woods, and would find his way only by observing those natural appearances that serve as a compass to the Indian and the forester.

In primitive woods there is but a small proportion of perfectly formed trees; and these occur only in such places as permit some individuals to stand in an isolated position, and spread out their arms to their full capacity. When rambling in a wood we take note of several conditions which are favorable to this full expansion of their forms. On the borders of a lake, a prairie, or an open moor, or of an extensive quarry that projects above the soil, the trees will extend their branches into the opening; but as they are crowded on their inner side, they are only half developed. This expansion, however, is on the side that is exposed to view; hence the incomparable beauty of a wood on the borders of a lake or pond, on the banks of a river as viewed from the water, and on the circumference of a densely wooded islet.

Fissures and cavities are frequent in large rocks not covered with soil, allowing solitary trees which have taken root in them to acquire their full proportions. In such places, and on eminences that rise suddenly above the forest level, with precipitous sides, overtopping the surrounding woods, we find individual trees possessing the character of standards, like those we see by roadsides and in open fields. But perfectly formed trees can only be produced in openings and on isolated elevations such as I have described; and it is evident that these favorable circumstances must be rare. The trees in a forest are like those human beings who from their infancy have been confined in the workshops of a crowded manufacturing town, and who become closely assimilated and lose those marks of individual character by which they would be distinguished if they had been reared in a state of freedom and in the open country.

The primitive forest, in spite of its dampness, has always been subject to fires in dry seasons, which have sometimes extended over immense tracts of country. These fires were the dread of the early settlers, and countless lives have been destroyed by their flames often overwhelming entire villages. At the present time the causes of fire in the woods are very numerous; but before they were exposed to artificial sources of ignition it may have arisen from spontaneous combustion, caused by large accumulations of fermenting substances, or from lightning, or from the accidental friction of the trunks of half-prostrated trees crossing each other, and moved by a high wind. The forests in every part of the world have been subject to conflagrations; and there seems to be no other means that could be used by nature for removing old and worn-out forests, which contain more combustible materials than any young woods. The burned tracts in America are called barrens by the inhabitants; and as the vegetation on the surface is often entirely destroyed, the spontaneous renewal of it would display the gradual method of nature in restoring the forest. The successions of plants, from the beautiful crimson fireweed, through all the gradations of tender herbs, prickly bushes, and brambles, to shrubs and trees of inferior stature, until all, if the soil be deep and fertile, are supplanted by oaks, chestnuts, hickories, and other hard-wood trees, are as regular and determinable as the courses of the planets or the orders of the seasons.

THE ASH.

It is interesting to note the changes that take place from one season to another in the comparative beauty of certain trees. The Ash, for example, during the early part of October, is one of the most beautiful trees of the forest, exceeded only by the maple in variety of tinting. In summer, too, but few trees surpass it in quality of foliage, disposed in flowing irregular masses, light and airy, but not thin, though allowing the branches to be traced through it, even to their extremities. It has a well-rounded head, neither so regular as to be formal, nor so broken as to detract from its peculiar grace. When standing with other trees in midsummer, in the border of a wood, or mingled with the standards by the roadside, the Ash would be sure to attract admiration. But no sooner have the leaves fallen from its branches than it takes rank below almost all other trees, presenting a stiff, blunt, and awkward spray, and an entire want of that elegance it affects at other seasons.

The Ash is a favorite in Europe, though deficient there in autumnal tints. It is a tree of the first magnitude, and has been styled in classical poetry the Venus of the forest, from the general beauty of its proportions and flowing robes. The English, however, complain of the Ash, on account of its tardy leafing in the spring and its premature denudation in the autumn. “Its leaf,” says Gilpin, “is much tenderer than that of the oak, and sooner receives impression from the winds and frost. Instead of contributing its tint, therefore, in the wane of the year, among the many colored offspring of the woods, it shrinks from the blast, drops its leaf, and in each scene where it predominates leaves wide blanks of desolate boughs amid foliage yet fresh and verdant. Before its decay we sometimes see its leaf tinged with a fine yellow, well contrasted with the neighboring greens. But this is one of nature’s casual beauties. Much oftener its leaf decays in a dark, muddy, unpleasing tint.”

The Ash is remarkable for a certain trimness and regularity of proportion, and it seldom displays any of those breaks so conspicuous in the outlines of the hickory, which in many points it resembles. The trunk rises to more than an average height before it is subdivided; but we do not see the central shaft above this subdivision, as in the poplar and the fir. Lateral branches seldom shoot from the trunk, save, as I have sometimes observed, a sort of bushy growth, surrounding it a little below the angles made by the lower branches. It is called in Europe “the painters’ tree.” But George Barnard, alluding to this fact, remarks: “Unlike the oak, the Ash does not increase in picturesqueness with old age. The foliage becomes rare and meagre, and its branches, instead of hanging loosely, often start away in disagreeable forms.”

North America contains a greater number of species of the genus Fraxinus than any other part of the globe. But three of these only are common in New England,—the white, the red, and the black Ash. The first is the most frequent both in the forest and by the roadsides, the most beautiful, and the most valuable for its timber. All the species have pinnate and opposite leaves, and opposite branches in all the recent growth; but as the tree increases in size, one of the two invariably becomes abortive, so that we perceive this opposite character only in the spray. The leaflets are mostly in sevens, not so large nor so unequal as in the similar foliage of the hickory.

The white and the red Ash have so nearly the same external characters, that it requires some study to distinguish them. They do not differ in their ramification, nor in their autumnal hues. The black Ash may be readily identified by the leaves, which are sessile, and like those of the elder; also by the dark bluish color of the buds and newly formed branches, and the slenderness of its proportions. It seldom attains a great height or size, and is chiefly confined to swamps and muddy soils. The wood of this species is remarkable for strength and elasticity. The remarks of George Barnard respecting the localities of the Ash in Europe will apply to the American species: “Though seen everywhere, its favorite haunt is the mountain stream, where its branches hang gracefully over the water, adding much beauty to the scene. It is to be met with in every romantic glen and glade, now clinging with half-covered roots to a steep, overhanging cliff, and breaking with its light, elegant foliage the otherwise too abrupt line, or with its soft warm green relieving the monotonous coloring of the rocks or the sombre gray of some old ruin.”

There are some remarkable superstitions and traditionary notions connected with the Ash-tree. The idea that it is offensive, and even fatal, to serpents, is not of modern origin, though not a rustic laborer can be found who would not consider an Ash-tree planted before his house as a charm against their intrusion. According to Pliny, if a serpent be surrounded on one side by fire and on the other by a barricade of the leaves and branches of the Ash-tree, he will escape through the fire, rather than through its fatal boughs. It is related in the Edda that man was first created from the wood of this tree, and it is not improbable that this superstition has some connection with the fable of Adam and Eve, and through this with the supposed antipathy of the serpent for the Ash-tree.

There is a saying in Great Britain, that, if the Ash puts forth its leaves before the oak, the following summer will be wet; but if the leafing of the oak precedes that of the Ash, it will be dry. I am not aware that any such maxim has obtained credence in the United States.

ANIMALS OF THE PRIMITIVE FOREST.

European travellers in this country frequently allude to the American forest as remarkable for its solitude and deficiency of animal life. Captain Hardy remarks that a foreigner is struck with surprise, when rambling through the bush, at the scarcity of birds, rabbits, and hares, and is astonished when in the deepest recesses of the wild country he sees but little increase of their numbers. When paddling his canoe through lake and river, he will startle but few pairs of exceedingly timid waterfowl where in Europe they swarm in multitudes. This scarcity of animals, I would remark, is not peculiar to the American wilderness. The same fact has been observed in extensive forests both in Europe and Asia; and in proportion as the traveller penetrates into their interiors he finds a smaller number of animals of almost every species. Birds, insects, and quadrupeds will multiply, like human beings, in a certain ratio with the progress of agriculture, so long as there remains a sufficiency of wild wood to afford them a refuge and a home. They use the forest chiefly for shelter, and the open grounds for forage; the woods are their house, the meadows their farm.

I had an opportunity for observing these facts very early in life, when making a pedestrian tour through several of the States. I commenced my journey in autumn, and being alone, I was led to take note of many things which, had any one accompanied me, would have escaped my observation. After passing a few weeks of the winter in Nashville, I directed my course through Tennessee and Virginia, and was often led through extensive ranges of forest. I never saw birds in any part of the United States so numerous as in the woods adjoining the city of Nashville, which was surrounded with immense cornfields and cotton plantations. But while walking through the country I could not help observing the scarcity of birds and small quadrupeds in the woods whenever I was at a long distance from any village or habitation. Sometimes night would draw near before I had reached a hamlet or farm-house, where I might take lodging. On such occasions the silence of the woods increased my anxiety, which was immediately relieved upon hearing the cardinal or the mocking-bird, whose cheerful notes always indicated my approach to cultivated fields and farms.

That this scarcity of animal life is not peculiar to the American forest we have the testimony of St. Pierre, who says of the singing birds: “It is very remarkable that all over the globe they discover an instinct which attracts them to the habitations of man. If there be but a single hut in the forest, all the singing birds of the vicinity come and settle round it. Nay, they are not to be found except in places which are inhabited. I have travelled more than six hundred leagues through the forests of Russia, but never met with small birds except in the neighborhood of villages. On making the tour of fortified places in Russian Finland with the general officers of the corps of engineers with which I served, we travelled sometimes at the rate of twenty leagues a day without seeing on the road either village or bird. But when we perceived the sparrows fluttering about, we concluded we must be near some inhabited place. In this indication we were never once deceived.”

It may be remarked, however, that birds and quadrupeds do not seek the company of man when they congregate near his habitations. They are attracted by the increased amount of all their means of subsistence that follows the cultivation of the land. The granivorous birds, no less than the insect-feeders, are benefited by the extension of agriculture. Even if no cereal grains were raised, the cultivated fields would supply them, in the product of weeds alone, more sustenance than a hundred times the same area in forest. Before there were any settlements of white men in this country, birds and small quadrupeds must have congregated chiefly about the wooded borders of prairies, on the banks of rivers, in fens and cranberry meadows, and around the villages of the red man. Their numbers over the whole continent were probably much smaller than at the present time, notwithstanding the merciless destruction of them by gunners and trappers.

There are but few tribes of animals that may be supposed to thrive only in the wild forest; and even these, if unmolested by man, would always find a better subsistence in a half-cultivated country abounding in woods of sufficient extent to afford them shelter and a nursery for their young, than in a continuous wilderness. Beasts of prey, however, are destroyed by man in the vicinity of all his settlements, to protect himself and his property from their attacks, and game-birds and animals of the chase are recklessly hunted both for profit and amusement. In Europe the clearing of the original forest was so gradual that the wild animals multiplied more rapidly with the progress of agriculture. Civilization advanced so slowly, and the arts made such tardy and gradual progress, that all species enjoyed considerable immunity from man. The game-birds and animals of the chase were not only preserved in forests attached to princely estates, but they were also protected by game-laws at a time when such laws were less needful because so few of the peasantry were accustomed to the use of the gun. While the royal forests yielded these creatures a shelter and abode, the cultivated lands near their bounds afforded them subsistence; and they must have multiplied more rapidly in proportion to the increase of human population than in America after its settlement, where very different circumstances and events were witnessed.

America was colonized and occupied by civilized people, and the forests were swept away with a rapidity unprecedented in the history of man. Every pioneer was a hunter provided with guns and ammunition; every male member of his family over seven years of age was a gunner and a trapper. The sparse inhabitants of the forest, which if unmolested, as in the early period of European civilization, would have multiplied in proportion to their increased means of subsistence, have been, on the contrary, shot by the gunner, insnared by the trapper, and wantonly destroyed by boys for amusement, until some species have been nearly exterminated. Instead of increasing in a ratio with the supplies of their natural food, many tribes of them are now more scarce than they were in the primitive forest. The small birds alone, whose prolific habits and diminutive size were their protection, have greatly multiplied.

But even if birds and quadrupeds were unmolested by man, there are some tribes that would prefer to reside in the deep wood, while others would fix their abode in orchards and gardens. The wild pigeon has not been favored in any respect by the clearing of the forest. The food of this species is abundantly supplied in the wilds of nature in the product of beechen woods, hazel copses, groves of the chinquapin oak, and of the shores of lakes and arms of the sea covered with Canada rice and the maritime pea-vine. Their immense powers of flight enable them to transport themselves to new feeding-grounds after any present stock is exhausted, and to wing their way over hundreds of miles between their different repasts. This cannot be said of the grouse, the turkey, and the partridge, whose feeble powers of flight confine them to a narrow extent of territory; and these birds must have been frequently robbed of their farinaceous stores by flocks of wild pigeons during their itinerant foraging.

There are many species of birds which we associate with the wild wood because they breed and find shelter there, but if we watched their habits we should learn that even these solitary birds make the cultivated grounds their principal feeding-places. Such are the quail, the partridge, and very many of our game-birds. The quail and the partridge are omnivorous, but, like our common poultry, are more eager to seize a grub or an insect than a grain of corn. A potato-field is hardly less valuable to a flock of quails than a field of corn, and affords more sustenance to the snipe and the woodcock than any other grounds. But these birds, as well as others, have diminished as those natural advantages have increased that should promote their multiplication.

Even our sylvias and thrushes, the most timid of all the winged tribe, birds hardly ever seen except in lonely woods, multiply with the clearing of the country and the increased abundance of their insect food. The vesper thrushes, that shun the presence of man, and will become silent in their musical evening if the rustling of the bushes indicates the approach of a human footstep, are more numerous in the woods of Cambridge than in any other part of the country. These are chiefly of maple, filled with underbrush, and afford the birds a harbor and a shelter, while the adjoining fields, in a state of the highest tillage, supply them plentifully with their natural food, consisting of worms and the larvæ of insects.

THE AZALEA, OR SWAMP HONEYSUCKLE.

The Azaleas are favorite flowering shrubs in florists’ collections at the present day, and are remarkable for the delicacy of their flowers and the purity of their colors. In New England are only two species,—the Swamp Honeysuckle and the colored Azalea, a prostrate shrub bearing pink flowers. It cannot be doubted that the interest attached to a flower is greatly increased by finding it in the wild wood. I have frequently observed this effect and the opposite upon suddenly meeting a garden flower in a field or wood-path, or a wild flower in the garden. When the Swamp Honeysuckle is seen growing with the fairer Azaleas of the florists in cultivated grounds, its inferiority is most painfully apparent; but when I encounter it in some green solitary dell in the forest, bending over the still waters, where all the scenes remind me only of nature, I am affected with more pleasure than by a display of the more beautiful species in a garden or greenhouse.

SWAMP AZALEA

The Swamp Honeysuckle is one of the most interesting of the New England flowering shrubs, and a very well known species. It comes into flower about the first of July, and is recognized by its fragrance,—resembling that of the marvel of Peru,—by the similarity of its flowers to those of the woodbine, and their glutinous surface. It is found only in wet places, and delights in suspending its flowers over a gently flowing stream, the brink of a pool, or the margin of a pond, blending its odors with those of water-lilies, and borrowing a charm from the reflection of its own beauty on the surface of the still water. Though it bears no fruit, every rambler in the woods is grateful for the perfume it sheds around him while wandering in quest of its flowers. These are extremely delicate in texture and closely resemble those of the common white honeysuckle or woodbine of our gardens, not only in their general shape, but also in the appearance of several wilted flowers in the same cluster with perfect flowers and buds. A pulpy excrescence is often attached to this plant, which is familiarly known by the name of “swamp apple.” It is slightly acidulous and sweet, and, though nearly insipid, is not disagreeable in flavor.

A more beautiful but less common species, with pale crimson flowers, is found in certain localities, that tends to multiply into varieties. It is a smaller shrub than the white Azalea, and does not show the same preference for wet places. All the species are more remarkable for their flowers than their foliage, which is of a pale glaucous green and small in quantity.

THE CANADIAN RHODORA.

In the latter part of May, when the early spring flowers are just beginning to fade, and when the leaves of the forest trees are sufficiently expanded to display all the tints attending the infancy of their growth, no plant attracts more admiration than the Canadian Rhodora. The flowers, of a purple crimson, are in umbels on the ends of the branches, appearing before the leaves. The corolla, consisting of long narrow petals, very deeply cleft, the stamens on slender hairy filaments, and the projecting style, resemble tufts of colored silken fringe. The Rhodora is from two to six feet in height, and is one of the most conspicuous ornaments of wet, bushy pastures in this part of the country. It is the last in the train of the delicate flowers of spring, and by its glowing hues indicates the coming of a brighter vegetation. When other shrubs of different species are only half covered with foliage, the Rhodora spreads out its flowers upon the surface of the variegated ground, in plats and clumps of irregular sizes, and sheds a checkered glow of crimson over whole acres of moor. The poets have said but little of this flower because it wants individuality. We look upon the blossoms of the Rhodora as we look upon the crimsoned clouds, admiring their general glow, not the cast of single flowers. But there is something very poetical in the rosy wreaths it affixes to the brows of Nature, still pallid with the long confinement of winter.

CATKINS OF WILLOW.

THE WILLOW.

The Willow is of all trees the most celebrated in romance and romantic history. Its habit of growing by the sides of lakes and rivers, and of spreading its long branches over wells in solitary pastures, has given it a peculiar significance in poetry as the accompaniment of pastoral scenes, and renders it one of the most interesting objects in landscape. Hence there is hardly a song of nature, a rustic lay of shepherds, a Latin eclogue, or any descriptive poem, that does not make frequent mention of the Willow. The piping sounds from wet places in the spring of the year, the songs of the earliest birds, and the hum of bees when they first go abroad after their winter’s rest, are all delightfully associated with this tree. We breathe the perfume of its flowers before the meadows are spangled with violets, and when the crocus has just appeared in the gardens; and its early bloom makes it a conspicuous object when it comes forth under an April sky, gleaming with a drapery of golden verdure among the still naked trees of the forest and orchard.

When Spring has closed her delicate flowers, and the multitudes that crowd around the footsteps of May have yielded their places to the brighter host of June, the Willow scatters the golden aments that adorned it, and appears in the deeper garniture of its own green foliage. The hum of insects is no longer heard among the boughs in quest of honey, but the notes of the phebe and the summer yellow-bird, that love to nestle in their spray, may be heard from their green shelter on all summer noons. The fresh and peculiar incense of the peat-meadows, with their purple beds of cranberry-vines and wild strawberries, the glistening of still waters, and the sight of little fishes that gambol in their clear depths, are circumstances that accompany the Willow, and magnify our pleasure on beholding it, either in a picture or real landscape. We prize the Willow for its material qualities no more than for its poetic relations; for it is not only the beauty of a tree, but the scenes with which it is allied, and the ideas and images it awakens in the mind, that make up its attractions.

The very name of this tree brings to mind at once a swarm of images, rural, poetical, and romantic. There is a softness in the sound of Willow that accords with the delicacy of its foliage and the flexibility of its slender branches. The syllables of this word must have been prompted by the mellow tones which are produced by the wind when gliding through its airy spray. Writers of romance have always assigned the Willow to youthful lovers, as affording the most appropriate arbor for their rustic vows, which would seem to acquire a peculiar sacredness when spoken under the shade of the most poetical of all trees.

The Willow, though tenacious of life, will not prosper in dry places. Its presence is a sure indication of water, either on the surface of the ground or a little beneath it. The grass is green at all times under this tree, and the herds that browse upon its foliage and young branches find beneath them the most grateful pasture. In the New England States it has long been customary to plant Willows by the wayside, wherever the road passes over wet grounds. Some of the most delightful retreats of the pedestrian are found under their shady boughs. When he is panting with heat and thirst, the sight of their green rows fills him with new animation, as they indicate the presence of water as well as cooling shade. The same comely rows are seen skirting the pools and watercourses of our pastoral hills and arable meadows. They are planted also by the sides of streams and canals, where they serve, by their long and numerous roots, to consolidate the banks, and by their leaves and branches afford shelter to cattle. These Willows are among the fairest ornaments of the landscape in Massachusetts just after the elm and red maple have put forth their flowers. And so lively is their appearance, with their light green foliage, that when we meet with a group of them in the turn of a road on a cloudy day, we seem to be greeted with a sudden gleam of sunshine.

The Willow is one of the few trees which have been transplanted from Europe to our own soil without being either equalled or surpassed by some American tree of kindred species. But there is no indigenous Willow in any part of the American continent that will bear comparison in size and in those general qualities which we admire in trees, either with the Weeping Willow or the common yellow Willow. The latter is as frequent in our land as any one of our native trees, except in the forest. It attains a considerable height and great dimensions, seldom forming a single trunk, but sending upward from the ground, or from a very short bole, three or four diverging branches, so as to resemble an immense shrub. This mode of growth is caused perhaps by our way of planting it,—by inserting into the ground cuttings which have no leading shoot. Indeed, all these Willows are pollards. Not one of the species is found in our forest, except where it has spread over land that has once been cleared and cultivated. In that case, we find mixed with the forest trees Willows, apple-trees, and lilacs, which were planted there before the tract was restored to nature. I have seen trees of this species growing as standards of immense size, with their branches always joining the trunk very near the ground. On this account little rustic seats and arbors are more frequently erected in the crotch of a Willow than in that of any other tree.

The most of our indigenous Willows are mere shrubs. Though there are above thirty American species, but few of them rise to the stature of trees. Some of them are creeping plants and prostrate shrubs, some are neat and elegant trees in miniature. Their branches are also of many colors, some of a fine golden hue, spreading a sort of illumination over the swamps where they abound; some are red; others with foliage so dark as to have gained the name of Mourning Willow. Some, like our common bog Willow, are called white, from their downy or silken aments. One of the most beautiful of the small species is the golden osier, or Basket Willow. The yellow twigs of this shrub, coming up from the ground like grass without subdivisions, but densely from one common root, are very ornamental to low grounds. It would seem as if Nature, who has given but little variety to the foliage of this tree had made up for its deficiency by causing the different species to display a charming variety in their size. Thus, while the common yellow Willow equals the oak in magnitude, there are many species which are miniature shrubs, not larger than a heath plant. As one of the beautiful gifts of nature, the Willow claims a large share of our admiration. Though not a convenient ornament of our enclosures, the absence of this tree from the banks of quiet streams and glassy waterfalls, overhanging rivers and shading the brink of fountains, would be most painfully felt by every lover of nature.

ROTATION AND DISTRIBUTION.

It has been observed by foresters that there is a tendency in any soil which has long been occupied by a certain kind of timber, to produce, after the trees have been felled, a very different kind, if it be left to its spontaneous action. The laws affecting such rotations have been very well ascertained, and a careful investigation of the subject would undoubtedly reveal many curious facts not yet known. If the stumps of the trees, consisting of oak, ash, maple, and some other deciduous kinds, remain after the wood is felled, they will throw up suckers, and the succeeding timber will be an inferior growth of the original wood. But if the stumps and roots of the trees should be entirely removed, it would be more difficult to determine what would be the character of the next spontaneous growth. It would probably be planted by the kinds that prevail in the neighboring forests, and it would depend on the character of the soil whether the hard or soft-wood trees would finally predominate.

There is an important chemical agency at work, that originally determines the distribution of forests, and afterwards their rotation. The hard-wood trees require more potash and a deeper soil than the coniferous and soft-wood trees. Hence they are found chiefly on alluvial plains and the lower slopes of mountains, where the soil is deep and abounds in all valuable ingredients for the support of vegetation. Pines and firs, on the contrary, though frequently discovered of an immense size on alluvial soils, are generally crowded out of such grounds by the superior vigor of the hard-wood trees; and they can only maintain their supremacy on barren and sandy levels, and the thin soils of mountain declivities, too meagre to support the growth of timber of superior kinds. But a wood must stand a great many years, several centuries perhaps, after its spontaneous restoration, before this order of nature could be fully established. We must observe the spontaneous growth and distribution of herbaceous plants in different soils to ascertain these laws, which are the same in a field as in a forest.

When any growth of hard wood has been felled and the whole removed from the ground, the soil, having been exhausted of its potash, cannot support a new and vigorous growth of the same kind of timber. The succession will consist of a meagre growth of the same species from seeds already planted there; but the white birch and poplar, especially the large American aspen, usually predominate in clearings in this part of the country. When a pine wood is felled, it is succeeded by an inferior growth of conifers, and a species of dwarf or scrub oak. Seldom, indeed, after any kind of wood has been cut down and carried away from the spot, can the exhausted soil support another that is not inferior in quality or species. Though an oak wood may be succeeded by pines, a pine wood will not be succeeded by oaks or any other hard timber, unless the trees were burned and their ashes restored to the soil. Hence we may account for the fact that poplars, white birches, and wild-cherry-trees, occupy a larger proportion of the ground that is now covered with wood than they did a century ago, in all parts of the country.

I have already alluded to the well-known fact, that the generic character of the timber, in the distribution of the primitive forest, in any country, is determined in great measure by the geological character of the soil. On sandy plains in the primitive forest, the white birch, the poplar, the aspen, and the pitch pine were abundant, as they are now on similar soils. The preference of the red maple for wet and miry soils is well known; while hard maple, oak, beech, and hickory do not prosper except in strong alluvial tracts. A heavy growth of hard timber indicates a superior soil; pine indicates an inferior one, if it has been left to the spontaneous action of nature. In the primitive forest we were sure of finding such relations of soil and species. They are not so invariable since the operations of agriculture have interrupted the true method of nature.

When a wood has been burned, the process of renewal, when left to nature, is much more tardy than if it had been felled, since it can now be restored only by a regular series of vegetable species, which must precede it, according to certain inevitable laws. The soil, however, being improved and fertilized by the ashes of the burnt timber, is in a chemical condition to support a luxuriant forest as soon as in the course of nature it can be planted there. Trees will not immediately come up from this burnt ground as in a clearing; and if they should appear, they would mostly perish from the want of protection. In the order of nature herbaceous plants are the first to occupy the soil, and these are followed by a uniform succession of different species. There is an epilobium, or willow herb, with elegant spikes of purple flowers, conspicuous in our meadows in August, which is one of the earliest occupants of burnt ground, hence called fireweed in Maine and Nova Scotia. The downy appendage to its seeds causes it to be planted there by the winds immediately after the burning. The trillium appears also in great abundance upon the blackened surface of the ground in all wet places. Plants like the ginseng, the erythronium, and the like, whose bulbs or tubers lie buried deep in the mould, escape destruction, and come up anew. These, along with several compound plants with downy seeds, and a few ferns and equisetums, are the first occupants of burnt lands.

But the plants mentioned above have no tendency to foster the growth of young trees. They are, however, succeeded by the thistles and thorny plants, which are nature’s preparation of any tract, once entirely stripped of vegetation, as a nursery for the seedlings. All the phenomena of nature’s rotation are but the necessary giving place of rapid-growing and short-lived plants to others which are perennial and more capable of maintaining their ground after being once planted. Thorns and thistles soon appear on burnt lands, and protect the young trees as they spring up, both from the winds and the browsing of animals. Thus many an oak has been nursed in a cradle of thorns and brambles, and many a lime-tree growing in a bower of eglantine has been protected by its thorns from the browsing of the goat.

We very early discover a variety of those woody plants that bear an edible fruit, which is eaten by birds and scattered by them over the land, including many species of bramble. The fruit-bearing shrubs always precede the fruit-bearing trees; but the burnt land is first occupied by those kinds that bear a stone-fruit. Hence great numbers of cherry-trees and wild-plum-trees are found there, as the natural successors of the wild gooseberry and bramble-bushes. These are soon mixed with poplars, limes, and other trees with volatile seeds. But oaks, hickories, and the nut-bearing trees must wait to be planted by squirrels and field-mice and some species of birds. The nut-bearers, therefore, will be the last to appear in a burnt region, for the little quadrupeds that feed upon their fruit will not frequent this spot until it is well covered with shrubbery and other vegetation. If the soil be adapted to the growth of heavy timber, the superior kinds, like the oak, the beech, and the hard maple, will gradually starve out the inferior species, and in the course of time predominate over the whole surface.

When I consider all these relations between plants and animals, I feel assured, if the latter were destroyed that plant their seeds, many species would perish and disappear from the face of the earth. Nature has provided, in all cases, against the destruction of plants, by endowing the animals that consume their fruits with certain habits that tend to perpetuate and preserve them. In this way they make amends for the vast quantities they consume. After the squirrels and jays have hoarded nuts for future use, they do not find all their stores; and they sow by these accidents more seeds than could have been planted by other accidental means, if no living creature fed upon them. Animals are not more dependent on the fruit of these trees for their subsistence, than the trees are upon them for the continuance of their species. And it is pleasant to note that, while plants depend on insects for the fertilization of their flowers, they are equally indebted to a higher order of animals for planting their seeds. The wasteful habits of animals are an important means for promoting this end. The fruit of the oak, the hickory, and the chestnut will soon decay if it lies on the surface of the ground, exposed to alternate dryness and moisture, and lose its power of germination. Only those nuts which are buried under the surface are in a condition to germinate. Many a hickory has grown from a nut deposited in the burrow of a squirrel; and it is not an extravagant supposition that whole forests of oaks and hickories may have been planted in this manner.

These facts are too much neglected in our studies of nature. A knowledge of them, and a consideration of their bearings in the economy of nature, might have saved many a once fertile country from being converted into a barren waste, and may serve yet to restore such regions to their former happy condition. But these little facts are not of sufficient magnitude to excite our admiration, and they involve a certain process of reasoning that is not agreeable to common minds, or even to the more cultivated, which have been confined chiefly to technology. The few facts to which I have alluded in this essay are such as lie at the vestibule of a vast temple that has not yet been entered. I am not ready to say that no single species of the animal creation may not be destroyed without derangement of the method of nature; for thousands have, in the course of time, become extinct by the spontaneous action of natural agents. But there is reason to believe that, if any species should be destroyed by artificial means, certain evils of grievous magnitude might follow their destruction.

The frugivorous birds are the victims of constant persecution from the proprietors of fruit gardens. Their persecutors do not consider that their feeding habits have preserved the trees and shrubs that bear fruit from utter annihilation. They are the agents of nature for distributing vegetables of all kinds that bear a pulpy fruit in places entirely inaccessible to their seeds by any other means. Notwithstanding the strong digestive organs of birds, which are capable of dissolving some of the hardest substances, the stony seeds of almost all kinds of pulpy fruit pass through them undigested. By this providence of nature the whole earth is planted with fruit-bearing trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants, while without it these would ultimately become extinct. This may seem an unwarrantable assertion. It is admitted that birds alone could distribute the seeds of this kind of plants upon the tops of mountains and certain inaccessible declivities, which, without their agency, must be entirely destitute of this description of vegetation. But these inaccessible places are no more dependent on the birds than the plains and the valleys. The difference in the two cases is simply that the one is apparent, like a simple proposition in geometry, and the other requires a course of philosophical reasoning to be perfectly understood.

THE WEEPING WILLOW.

In the early part of my life, one of my favorite resorts during my rambles was a green lane bordered by a rude stone-wall, leading through a vista of overarching trees, and redolent always with the peculiar odors of the season. At the termination of this rustic by-road,—a fit approach to the dwelling of the wood-nymphs,—there was a gentle rising ground, forming a small tract of tableland, on which a venerable Weeping Willow stood,—a solitary tree overlooking a growth of humble shrubs, once the tenants of an ancient garden. The sight of this tree always affected me with sadness mingled with a sensation of grandeur. This old solitary standard, with a few rose-bushes and lilacs beneath its umbrage, was all that remained on the premises of an old mansion-house which had long ago disappeared from its enclosure. Thus the Weeping Willow became associated in my memory, not with the graveyard or the pleasure-ground, but with these domestic ruins, the sites of old homesteads whose grounds had partially reverted to their primitive state of wildness.

Of all the drooping trees the Weeping Willow is the most remarkable, from the perfect pendulous character of its spray. It is also consecrated to the Muse by the part which has been assigned to it in many a scene of romance, and by its connection with pathetic incidents recorded in Holy Writ. It is invested with a moral interest by its symbolical representation of sorrow, in the drooping of its terminal spray, by its fanciful use as a garland for disappointed lovers, and by the employment of it in burial-grounds and in funereal paintings. We remember it in sacred history, associating it with the rivers of Babylon and with the tears of the children of Israel, who sat down under the shade of this tree and hung their harps upon its branches. It is distinguished by the graceful beauty of its outlines, its light green delicate foliage, its sorrowing attitude, and its flowing drapery.

Hence the Weeping Willow never fails to please the sight even of the most insensible observer. Whether we see it waving its long branches over some pleasure-ground, overshadowing the gravel walk and the flower garden, or watching over a tomb in the graveyard, where the warm hues of its foliage yield cheerfulness to the scenes of mourning, or trailing its floating branches, like the tresses of a Naiad, over some silvery lake or stream, it is in all cases a beautiful object, always poetical, always picturesque, and serves by its alliance with what is hallowed in romance to bind us more closely to nature.

It is not easy to imagine anything of this character more beautiful than the spray of the Weeping Willow. Indeed, there is no other tree that is comparable with it in this respect. The American elm displays a more graceful bend of all the branches that form its hemispherical head; and there are several weeping birches which are very picturesque when standing by a natural fountain on some green hillside. The river maple is also a theme of constant admiration, from the graceful flow of its long branches that droop perpendicularly when laden with foliage, but partly resume their erect position in winter, when denuded. But the style of all these trees differs entirely from that of the Weeping Willow, which in its peculiar form of beauty is unrivalled in the whole vegetable kingdom.

It is probable that the drooping trees acquired the name of “weeping,” by assuming the attitude of a person in tears, who bends over and seems to droop. This is the general attitude of affliction in allegorical representations. But this habit is far from giving them a melancholy expression, which is more generally the effect of dark sombre foliage. Hence the yew seems to be a more appropriate tree for burial-grounds, if it be desirable to select one of a sombre appearance. The bending forms of vegetation are universally attractive, by emblemizing humility and other qualities that excite our sympathy. All the drooping plants, herbs, trees, and shrubs are poetical, if not picturesque. Thus lilies, with less positive beauty, are more interesting than tulips.

A peculiar type of the drooping tree is seen in the fir, whose lower branches bend downwards, almost without a curve, from their junction with the stem of the tree. This drooping is caused by the weight of the snow that rests upon the firs during the winter in their native northern regions. There is a variety of the beech, and another of the ash, which has received the appellation of weeping, from an entire inversion of the branches, both large and small. Such trees seem to me only a hideous monstrosity, and I never behold them without some disagreeable feelings, as when I look upon a deformed animal.

VERNAL WOOD-SCENERY.

All the seasons display some peculiar beauty that comes from the tints as well as the forms of vegetation. Even the different months have their distinguishing shades of light and color. Nature, after the repose of winter, very slowly unfolds her beauties, and is not lavish in the early months of any description of ornament. Day by day she discloses the verdure of the plain, the swelling buds with their lively and various colors, and the pale hues of the early flowers. She brings along her offerings one by one, leading from harmony to harmony, as early twilight ushers in the ruddy tints of morn. We perceive both on the earth and in the skies the forms and tints that signalize the revival of Nature, and every rosy-bosomed cloud gives promise of approaching gladness and beauty.

By the frequent changes that mark the aspect of the year we are preserved at all times in a condition to receive pleasure from the outward forms of Nature. Her tints are as various as the forms of her productions; and though spring and autumn, when the hues of vegetation are more widely spread and yield more character to the landscape, are the most remarkable for their general beauty, individual objects in summer are brighter and more beautiful than any that can be found at other times. In the early part of the year, Nature tips her productions with softer hues, that gradually ripen into darker shades of the same color, or into pure verdure. By pleasant and slow degrees she mingles with the greenness of the plain the hues of the early flowers, and spreads a charming variety of warm and mellow tints upon the surface of the wood.

In treating of vernal tints, I shall refer chiefly to effects produced, without the agency of flowers, by that general coloring of the leaves and spray which may be considered the counterpart of the splendor of autumn. In the opening of the year many inconspicuous plants are brought suddenly into notice by their lively contrast with the dark and faded complexion of the ground. The mosses, lichens, and liverworts perform, therefore, an important part in the limning of the vernal landscape. On the bald hills the surfaces of rocks that project above the soil, and are covered with these plants, are brighter than the turf that surrounds them, with its seared grasses and herbage. They display circles of painted lichens, varying from an olive-gray to red and yellow, and tufts of green mosses which surpass the fairest artificial lawn in the perfection of their verdure. Many of the flowerless plants are evergreen, especially the ferns and lycopodiums, and nearly all are earlier than the higher forms of vegetation in ripening their peculiar hues.

The first remarkable vernal tinting of the forest is manifest in the spray of different trees. As soon as the sap begins to flow, every little twig becomes brightened on the surface, as if it had been glossed by art. The swelling of the bark occasioned by the flow of sap gives the whole mass a livelier hue. This appearance is very evident in the peach-tree, in willows and poplars, in the snowy mespilus, and in all trees with a long and slender spray. Hence the ashen green of the poplar, the golden green of the willow, and the dark crimson of the peach-tree, the wild rose, and the red osier, are perceptibly heightened by the first warm days of spring. Nor is this illumination confined to the species I have named; for even the dull sprays of the apple-tree, the cherry, the birch, and the lime, are dimly flushed with the hue of reviving life. As many of the forest trees display their principal beauty of form while in their denuded state, this seasonal polish invites our attention, particularly to those with long and graceful branches.

The swelling buds, which are for the most part very highly colored, whether they enclose a leaf or a flower, add greatly to this luminous appearance of the trees. These masses of innumerable buds, though mere colored dots, produce in the aggregate a great amount of color. This is apparent in all trees as soon as they are affected by the warmth of the season. But as vegetation comes forward, the flower-buds grow brighter and brighter, till they are fully expanded, some in the form of fringes, as in most of our forest trees, others, as in our orchard trees, in clusters of perfect flowers. This drapery of fringe, seldom highly colored, but containing a great variety of pale shades, that hangs from the oak, the birch, the willow, the alder, and the poplar, is sufficient to characterize the whole forest, and forms one of the most remarkable phenomena of vernal wood-scenery.

It is generally supposed that the beauties of tinted foliage are peculiar to autumn. I do not recollect any landscape painting in which the tints of spring are represented. All the paintings of colored leaves are sketches of autumnal scenes, or of the warm glow of sunlight. Yet there is hardly a tree or a shrub that does not display in its opening leaves a pale shade of the same tints that distinguish the species or the individual tree at the time of the fall of the leaf. The birch and the poplar imitate in their half-developed leaves the yellow tints of their autumnal dress, forming a yellow shade of green. The tender leaves of the maple and of the different oaks are all greenish purple of different shades. On the other hand, the foliage of trees that do not change their color in the autumn displays only a diluted shade of green, in its half-unfolded state. This remark, however, is not universal in its application; for we see the lilac, that appears in autumn without any change, coming out in the spring with dark impurpled foliage.

Green cannot, therefore, be said to characterize a vernal landscape. It belongs more especially to summer. The prevailing color of the forest during the unfolding of the leaf, when viewed from an elevated stand, is a cinereous purple, mingled with an olivegreen. The flowers of the elm, of a dark maroon, and the crimson flowers of the red maple, coming before their leaves, are an important element in the earliest hues of the wood. The red maple, especially, which is the principal timber of the swamps in all the southern parts of New England, yields a warm and ruddy glow to the woods in spring, hardly less to be admired than its own bright tints in October. Green hues, which become, day by day, more apparent in the foliage, do not predominate until summer has arrived and is fully established.

It is only in the spring that the different species of the forest can be identified by their colors at distances too great for observing their botanical characters. A red-maple wood is distinguished by the very tinge that pervades the spray, when the trees are so far off that we cannot see the forms of their branches and flowers, as if the ruddy hues of morning illuminated the whole mass. A grove of limes would be known by their dark-colored spray, approaching to blackness; an assemblage of white birches by that of a chocolate-color diverging from their clean white shafts. A beechen grove would manifest a light cinereous color throughout, mixed with a pale green as the foliage appears.

THE HORSE-CHESTNUT.

The Horse-Chestnut I would compare with the locust on account of their difference, not their resemblance. Like the locust, it is remarkable for the beauty of its flowers, though even in this respect the trees are of an opposite character; the one bears them in upright pyramids, the other in pendent racemes. Those of the locust are half closed and modest in their colors of white and brown; those of the Horse-Chestnut are wide open and somewhat flaring, though of a delicate rose-color and white. While in blossom the tree is unsurpassed in its beautiful display of flowers, that “give it the appearance of an immense chandelier covered with innumerable girandoles.”

After all, we can bestow very little praise upon the Horse-Chestnut, except for its flowers. The foliage of the tree displays neither lightness, nor elegance, nor brilliancy of verdure, nor autumnal tinting, nor any flowing beauty of outline. On the contrary, it is homely and heavy, though it affords a very deep shade. Indeed, when we view a Horse-Chestnut from a moderate distance, the arrangement of its leaves give it a very pleasing tufted appearance, unlike what we see in any other species. George Barnard says of it; “This cannot be called a picturesque tree, its shape being very formal; but the broad masses of foliage, although too defined and unbroken to be agreeable to the painter, are grand and majestic when seen in an avenue or in groups.”

HORSE-CHESTNUT.

As a shade-tree, or a tree for avenues and pleasure-grounds, none would deny the merits of the Horse-Chestnut; but when denuded it is a miserable-looking object, with its terminal branches resembling drumsticks, its primness without grace, and its amplitude without grandeur. The birds seldom build their nests among its branches, which are too wide apart to afford them protection or accommodation; for this tree is absolutely without any spray. Its fruit, which is borne in great abundance, sustains neither bird nor quadruped, nor is it profitable for man. Hence it has always been regarded by poets and moralists as a symbol of extravagance and waste.

THE CATALPA.

The Catalpa, though an American tree, is not indigenous in New England, nor farther north than Philadelphia. It is allied, in its botanical characters, to the bignonia, one of the most magnificent of the American flowering vines, which in Virginia and the Carolinas climbs the trunks of the loftiest trees, and, rising to a hundred feet or more, completely encompasses them with flowers of rare beauty and foliage of the finest green. The Catalpa requires notice here, because it is not uncommon in our gardens and pleasure-grounds, and it is becoming more and more general as a wayside tree. It is remarkable as a late bloomer, putting forth its large panicles of white flowers late in July, when those of other trees and shrubs have mostly faded, and covering the tree so thickly as almost to conceal its dense mass of foliage. The leaves are very large, but flowing, heart-shaped, and of a light and somewhat yellowish green. The Catalpa is not yet very common; but it is one of those rare productions which is never seen without being admired.

FORMS AND EXPRESSION OF TREES.

The different forms of trees, and their endless variety of foliage and spray, have, from the earliest times, been favorite studies of the painter and the naturalist. Not only has each species certain distinguishing marks, but their specific characters are greatly modified in individual trees. The Psalmist compares a godly man to a tree that is planted by rivers of water, whose leaf shall not wither,—seeing in the stateliness and beauty of such a tree an emblem of the noble virtues of the human heart. Trees are distinguished by their grandeur or their elegance, by their primness or their grace, by the stiffness of their leaves and branches or by their waving and tremulous motions. Some stand forth as if in defiance of the wind and the tempest; others, with long drooping branches, find security in bending to the gale, like the slender herbs in the meadow.

Trees are generally classed as landscape ornaments, according to their general outlines. “Some trees ascend vertically,” says St. Pierre, “and having arrived at a certain height, in an air perfectly unobstructed, fork off in various tiers, and send out their branches horizontally, like an apple-tree; or incline them towards the earth, like a fir; or hollow them in the form of a cup, like the sassafras; or round them into the shape of a mushroom, like the pine; or straighten them into a pyramid, like the poplar; or roll them as wool upon the distaff, like the cypress; or suffer them to float at the discretion of the winds, like the birch.” These are the normal varieties in the shape of trees. Others may be termed accidental, like those of the tall and imperfectly developed trees, which have been cramped by growing in dense assemblages, and of the pollards that have issued from the stumps and roots of other trees.

Trees are generally wanting in that kind of beauty which we admire in a vase, or an elegant piece of furniture. They have more of those qualities we look for in a picture and in the ruder works of architecture. Nature is neither geometrical nor precise in her delineations. She betrays a design in all her works, but never casts two objects in the same mould. She does not paint by formulas, nor build by square and compass, nor plant by a line and dibble; she takes no note of formal arrangements, or of the “line of beauty,” or of direct adaptation of means to ends. She shakes all things together, as in a dice-box, and as they fall out there they remain, growing crooked or straight, mean or magnificent, beautiful or ugly, but adapted by the infinite variety of their forms and dispositions to the wants and habits of all creatures.

The beauty of trees is something that exists chiefly in our imagination. We admire them for their evident adaptation to purposes of shade and shelter. Some of them we regard as symbols or images of a fine poetic sentiment. Such are the slender willows and poplars, that remind us of grace and refinement, becoming the emblems of some agreeable moral affection, or the embodiment of some striking metaphor. Thus Coleridge personifies the white birch as the “Lady of the Woods,” and the oak by other poets is called the monarch, and the ash the Venus of the forest. The weeping willow, beautiful on account of its graceful spray, becomes still more so when regarded as the emblem of sorrow. The oak, in like manner, is interesting as the symbol of strength and fortitude. A young fir-tree always reminds us of primness; hence the name of spruce, which is applied to many of the species, is a word used to express formality. The cedar of Lebanon would be viewed by all with a certain romantic interest, on account of the frequent mention of it in Holy Writ, as well as for its nobleness of dimensions and stature.

It is with certain interesting scenes in the romance of travel that we associate the palms of the tropics. They have acquired singular attractions by appearing frequently in scenes that represent the life and manners of the simple inhabitants of the equatorial regions. We see them in pictures bending their fan-like heads majestically over the humble hut of the Indian, supplying him at once with milk, bread, and fruit, and affording him the luxury of their shade. They emblemize the beneficence of nature, which, by means of their products, supplies the wants of man before he has learned the arts of civilized life.

Writers in general apply the term “picturesque” to trees which are devoid of symmetry and very irregular in their outlines, either crooked from age or from some natural eccentricity of growth. Thus the tupelo is so called, to distinguish it from round-headed and symmetrical or beautiful trees. This distinction is not very precise; but it is sanctioned by general use, and answers very well for common purposes of vague description. I shall use the words in a similar manner, not adhering to the distinction as philosophical. Indeed, it is impossible to find words that will clearly express a complex idea. Words are very much like tunes played on a jew’s-harp; the notes intended to be given by the performer are accompanied by the louder ring of the key-note of the instrument, making it difficult to detect the notes of the tune, except in the hands of an extraordinary performer.

Nature has provided against the disagreeable effects that would result from the dismemberment of trees, by giving to those which are the most common a great irregularity of outline, admitting of disproportion without deformity. Symmetry in the forms of natural objects becomes wearisome by making too great a demand upon the attention required for observing the order and relations of the different parts. But if the objects in the landscape be irregular, both in their forms and their distribution, we make no effort to attend to the relations of parts to the whole, because no such harmony is indicated. Such a scene has the beauty of repose. The opposite effect is observed in works of architecture, in which irregularity puzzles the mind to discover the mutual relations of parts, and becomes disagreeable by disturbing our calculations and disappointing our curiosity. The charm of art is variety combined with uniformity; the charm of nature is variety without uniformity. Nature speaks to us in prose, art in verse.

Though we always admire a perfectly symmetrical oak or elm, because such perfection is rare, it will be admitted that the irregular forms of trees are more productive of agreeable impressions on the mind. The oak, one of the most interesting of all trees, is, in an important sense, absolutely ugly, especially when old age has increased its picturesque attractions. Indeed, if we could always reason correctly on the subjects of our consciousness, we should find that a very small part of that complex quality which we call beauty yields any organic pleasure to the sight. The charm of most of the objects in this category exists only in our imaginations. In trees and the general objects of the landscape we look neither for symmetry nor proportion; the absence of these qualities is, therefore, never disagreeable. It is the nonfulfilment of some expectation, or the apparently imperfect supply of some important want, that offends the sight, as when a conspicuous gap occurs in some finely proportioned work of art.

LILAC.

THE LILAC.

The Lilac, though not one of our native trees, has become so generally naturalized in our fields and gardens as hardly to be distinguished from them except by its absence from the forest. It is common in all waste lands that were formerly the sites of ancient dwelling-houses, marking the spot where the garden was situated by its irregular clumps; for when neglected it does not assume the shape of a tree, but forms an assemblage of long stems from one spreading root, like the barberry and the sumach. Under favorable conditions it is a very handsome tree, seldom rising above twelve or fifteen feet, but displaying a round head, and covered in its season with a profusion of flowers, unfolding their beautiful pyramidal clusters regularly on the last week in May. The color of these flowers is perfectly unique, having given the name by which painters distinguish one of their most important tints. The foliage of this tree is not remarkable, except for the regular heart shape of the leaves. It displays no tints in the autumn, but falls from the tree while its verdure remains untarnished.

The Lilac is still cultivated and prized in all our country villages. But its praise is seldom spoken in these days, for Fashion, who refuses to acknowledge any beauty in what is common, discarded this tree as soon as it became domesticated in humble cottage gardens. Even the rose would long ago have been degraded from its ancient honors by this vulgar arbiter of taste, if it had not been multiplied into hundreds of varieties, permitting one after another to take its turn in monopolizing to itself those praises which are due to the primitive rose.

THE BARBERRY.

All the inhabitants of New England are familiar with the common Barberry, one of those humble objects of the landscape that possess great merit with little celebrity. It is allied in picturesque scenery with the whortleberry and the bramble. We see it in hilly pastures, upon soils less primitive than those occupied by the vaccinium, though it is not uncommon as an under-shrub in many of our half-wooded lands. I have not yet been able to obtain a definite idea of the nature of those qualities that entitle a plant to the praises of florists and landscape gardeners, since we find them admiring the ugly mahonia more than the common Barberry, and the glutinous and awkward rose-acacia more than the common locust. The praises of the Barberry have not been spoken; but if our landscape were deprived of this shrub, half the beauty of our scenery would be wanting in many places. Its flowers hanging from every spray in golden racemes, arranged all along in the axils of the leaves from the junction of the small branches to their extremities, always attract attention. But though elegant and graceful, they are not so conspicuous as the scarlet fruit in autumn. There is not in our fields a more beautiful shrub in October, when our rude New England hills gleam with frequent clumps of them, following the courses of the loose stone walls and the borders of rustic lanes. Even after it is stripped of its fruit, the pale red tints of its foliage render it still an attractive object in the landscape.

THE MISSOURI CURRANT.

Among the flowering shrubs which are universally admired for the fragrance and beauty of their early blossoms, the Missouri Currant deserves more than a passing mention. Though introduced into New England since the beginning of the present century, it has become a universal favorite in our gardens, where it is cultivated chiefly for the agreeable odor of its flowers, resembling that of cloves, and penetrating the air on all still days in May. This shrub has a small leaf with irregular pointed lobes, turning to a pale crimson in autumn. The flowers are in small racemes like those of the common garden currant, but brighter in their hues, which are of a golden yellow, and producing only a few large berries of a pure shining black. This species is chiefly prized for its flowers, and is not cultivated for its fruit.

THE CEANOTHUS, OR JERSEY TEA.

The Ceanothus was formerly well known to the people of the United States under the name of Jersey Tea. Its leaves were extensively used as an imitation tea during the Revolution. They seem to possess no decided medicinal qualities, being somewhat astringent, slightly bitter, but not aromatic. It has been learned from experience that the aromatic plants, by constant use as teas, will pall upon the appetite, and injuriously affect digestion; while those which are slightly bitter, but wanting in aroma, like the China tea plant, may be used without seriously affecting the health for an indefinite space of time. I believe it may also be stated as a maxim, that those plants whose properties are sufficiently active to be used as medicines have never been long employed by any people as substitutes for tea.

The flowers of the Ceanothus are white, in full and elegant clusters, without any formality of shape, having a downy appearance, always attracting attention, not so much by their beauty as by their delicacy and their profusion. This plant is abundant in New England, flowering in June on the borders of dry woods.

FOLIAGE.

Foliage is the most conspicuous of the minute productions of nature. To the leaves of trees we look, not only for the gratification of our sense of beauty, but as the chief source of grateful shade and of the general charms of summer. They are the pride of trees no less than their flowers, and the cause of healthful freshness in the atmosphere. They afford concealment to small birds and quadrupeds, they give color to the woods, and yield constant pleasure to the sight without any weariness. It is remarkable that we always trace with delight the forms of leaves in other objects of nature,—in the frostwork on our windows, in the lichens that cover the rocks in the forest, in the figures on a butterfly’s wing. Especially in art do we admire the imitation of foliage. It is, indeed, the source of half the beauty of this earth; for it constitutes the verdure of field and lawn, as well as of woods. Flowers are partial in their distribution, but foliage is universal, and is the material with which nature displays countless forms of beauty, from the small acicular leaves of the delicate heath plant, to the broad pennons of the banana, that float like banners over the hut of the negro.

With the putting forth of leaves we associate the most cheerful and delightful of seasons. In their plaited and half-unfolded condition and in their lighter hues we behold the revival of spring, and in their full development and perfected verdure the wealth, the ripeness, and the joyful fruition of summer. The different colors they assume are indeed the true dials of the year; pale shades of all denote its vernal opening; dark and uniform shades of green mark the summer; and those of gold, crimson and russet the autumn; so that by the leaves alone we might determine the month of the year. They form a delightful groundwork both for fruit and for flowers, harmonizing with each and making no discord with any hues of vegetation. If we consider leaves only as individual objects, they will not compare with flowers either in beauty of form or color. A single leaf seldom attracts a great deal of attention; but leaves in the aggregate are so important a part of the beauty of Nature, that she would not possess any great attraction for the sight without them. A cactus, though admired as a curiosity, and as the parent of magnificent flowers, is on account of its leafless habit but a miserable object; and we can imagine how forlorn must be the scenery of those Peruvian regions where the different species of cactus are the principal forms of vegetation.

It is very general to admire foliage in proportion as it is dense and capable of affording an impenetrable shade; but however desirable this may be to yield us a pleasant retreat on a summer noon, the beauty of a tree is not much improved by this quality. At a distance it presents a lumpish and uniform mass, with but little character; while a tree with moderately thin foliage, so thin as to be penetrated by the flickering sunshine, often discovers a great deal of character, by permitting the forms of the branches to be traced through its shadows. When I sit under a tree, I want to see the blue sky faintly glimmering through the leaves, and to view their forms on its clear surface when I look upwards. I would dispense with a profusion of shade, if it could be obtained only by shutting these things out from observation. Hence I always feel a sensation of gladness when rambling in a birchen grove, in which the small thin foliage and airy spray of the trees permit the sun and shade to meet and mingle playfully around my path.

The lumpish character of the foliage of large-leaved trees, like the tulip and magnolia, is perceptible at almost any distance, causing them to appear like green blots upon the landscape. The small-leaved trees, on the contrary, exhibit a certain neatness of spray, which immediately affects the eye with a sensation of beauty. This appearance is beautifully exemplified in the beech. Some of the large-leaved trees, however, possess a kind of formality that renders them very attractive. Such is the horse-chestnut, that spreads out its broad palmate leaves with their tips slightly drooping, like so many parasols held one above another. People have learned to admire large and broad foliage from descriptions of the immense size of tropical leaves, and by associating them with the romance of a voluptuous climate. The long pennon-like leaves of the banana and the wide fronds of the fan palm naturally excite the imagination of the inhabitant of the North.

The form of leaves, no less than their size, has a great share in their general effects, even when viewed from a distant point, where their outlines cannot be discriminated. If they are deeply cleft, like those of the river maple and the scarlet oak, or finely pinnate, like those of the locust and the mountain ash, we perceive a light, feathery appearance in the whole mass, before we are near enough to distinguish the form of individual leaves. This quality is apparent in the honey locust as far off as the tree can be identified. Hence the forms of leaves do not produce all their effect upon a near view; but in ornamental designs in the fine arts the delineations of foliage alone are considered. In the tracery of fenestral architecture, leaves are a very general and favorite ornament; and in photographic pictures of single leaves, the beauty of their outlines becomes more evident than in nature.

The most remarkable quality of foliage is color; and all will admit that green is the only color that would not produce weariness and final disgust. Omitting what may be said of autumn tints, the different shades of green in the forest, both while the foliage is ripening and after its maturity, constitute a very important distinction of individuals and species. Pure green is rarely found in any kind, except in its early stage of ripeness. The foliage of trees, when fully matured, is slightly tinged with brown or russet, and on the under side with white or blue. Painters, therefore, seldom use unalloyed green in their foliage; for even if they would represent its appearance in early summer, when its verdure is nearly pure, the effects of sunshine and shade upon the green forest can be produced only by a liberal mixture of the warm tints of orange and yellow when the sunshine falls upon it, and of purple and violet when it is in shadow.

If I were to select an example of what seems to me the purest green of vegetation, I should point to grass when smoothly shorn, as in a well-dressed lawn, so that the leaf only remains. By comparing the verdure of different trees with this example, we shall find it generally of a darker shade and inferior purity. The only trees of our soil that seem to me lighter, when in leaf, than grass, are the plane and the catalpa. We must observe trees on a cloudy day to distinguish the different shades of their foliage with precision. In such a state of the atmosphere they are all equally favored by the light; while, if the sun shines upon them, their verdure is modified according to the direction in which it is viewed.

That kind of foliage to which the epithet “silver” is usually applied is a very general favorite; but it is admired only because it is rare. I cannot believe, if the two kinds were equally common, that the silver leaf would be preferred to the green; for this is the color that affords the most enduring satisfaction. The white poplar is the most remarkable example of silver foliage. The river maple has less of this quality, though it seems to be one of the points for which it is admired. Nature displays but very little variegated foliage among her wild productions, except in the spring and autumn. It is evidently an abnormal habit; hence we find this variegation chiefly in those plants which have been modified by the cultivator’s art, and it seldom constitutes a specific mark of distinction.

In our studies of foliage we must not overlook the grasses, which are composed almost entirely of leaves. They contribute as much to the beauty of landscape as the verdure of trees, and collectively more than flowers. We need only a passing thought to convince us how tame and lifeless the landscape would be, though every hill were crowned with flowers, and every tree blossomed with gay colors, if there were no grasses or some kind of herbage to take their place. Hence the superior beauty of Northern landscape compared with the general scenery of tropical regions. There are more individual objects in a Southern land which are curious and beautiful, but its want of green fields soon renders its scenery wearisome.

There is also an interest attached to hills and meadows covered with green herbage, and pastured by flocks and herds, that comes from our sympathies and imagination, and causes the verdure of grass, when outspread upon their surface, to possess a moral or relative beauty displayed by few other natural objects. There is nothing else in landscape to be compared with it, and nearly all outdoor scenes would be cold and insipid without it. It expresses the fertility of the soil; it tells of gentle showers that have not been wanting; and it becomes thereby the symbol of providential care, the sign of pastoral abundance and rural prosperity. We find the grasses only where nature has made the greatest provision for the comfort and happiness of man and animals. All the beauties and bounties of springtime and harvest gather round them; the dews of morning glisten upon them like stars in the heavens; the flowers are sprinkled upon them like gems in beautiful tapestry; the little brooks ripple through them with sounds that are always cheerful, and flash in the sunlight as they leap over their bending blades. The merry multitudes of the insect race gain from them shelter and subsistence, and send up an unceasing chorus of merry voices from their verdure, which is a beautiful counterpart of the blue of heaven.

It may be truly said that no splendor of flowers or of the foliage of trees would make amends for the absence of grass. Distant hills and plains may be made beautiful by trees alone; but all near grounds require this velvety covering to render them grateful to the sight or interesting to the mind. This is the picturesque view of the subject; but in the eyes of a botanist grass is almost infinite in its attractions. In every field or pasture that offers its tender blades to the grazing herds, there are multitudes of species, beside the thousands of herbs and flowers and ferns and mosses which are always blended with them, and assist in composing their verdure. What seems to the eyes of a child a mere uniform mass of green is an assemblage of different species that would afford study for a lifetime. Grasses, though minute objects, are vast in their assemblages; but if we reflect on the phenomena of nature, we shall not consider the least thing any less admirable than the greatest. The same amount of wonderful mechanism is indicated in a spear of herdsgrass as in the bamboo that exceeds in height the trees of our forest; and the little cascade that falls over the pebbles in our footpath is as admirable to one who regards it as evincing the power of nature, as the Falls of Niagara.

THE TUPELO.

The old town of Beverly, which was a part of Salem during the era of witchcraft, abounds, like other townships on the northern coast of Massachusetts Bay, in rugged and romantic scenery. On one of the bald hills of this town, a pond fed by a spring near the top of the hill served as a watering-place for the flocks that were pastured there. The only tree on this elevation of bare granite, interspersed with little meadows of thin soil, covered with sweet-fern and whortleberry-bushes, stood on the brink of this pond. It was an ancient Tupelo, and attracted the attention of every visitor by the singular manner in which it spread its long branches in a crooked and horizontal direction over this emerald pool. It became the wonder of all that the tree should adopt such an eccentricity of habit, hardly showing a single branch on the land side, and bending over the water like an angler sitting at his task. It was evident that it had never been trimmed into this shape by artificial means. Many people, therefore, believed that its grotesque appearance had some connection with witchcraft, and that the witches who were hanged upon it had caused all the branches to wither and fall on the side that held the victims.

This tree has, I believe, no representative on the old continent; and though there are several species in the United States, only one is found in New England. Here it is one of the most remarkable trees as a picturesque object in landscape. Indeed, there is no other tree, not excepting the oak, that will compare with it in certain eccentricities of habit. It has received a variety of names in different parts of the country, being called “Swamp Hornbeam,” from the toughness of its wood; “Umbrella Tree,” from a peculiar habit of some individuals to become flattened and slightly convex at the top. Among our country people it is known as the “Wild Pear,” from a fancied resemblance between its foliage and that of the common pear-tree. The resemblance seems to consist only in the size and gloss of its leaves. In the Middle and Southern States it is called the “Sour Gum,” to distinguish it from the “Sweet Gum,” or Liquidambar. The name of Tupelo was given it by the aboriginal inhabitants.

The shapes assumed by the Tupelo are exceedingly grotesque, though it is frequently as regular in its growth as our most symmetrical trees. It is sometimes quite erect, extending its branches horizontally and pretty equally on all sides, but generally forming a more or less flattened top. More frequently the Tupelo displays no symmetry of any kind, extending its branches mostly on one side, and often putting forth two or three branches greatly beyond all the others. Many of these are considerably twisted, inclining downward from a horizontal position, not with a curve like those of the elm, but straight, like those of the spruce, though without any of its formality. The spray is very different from that of other trees. Every important branch is covered all round, at top, bottom, and sides, with short twigs, at right angles with the branch. Some of the swamp oaks resemble the Tupelo in fantastic shape, but they never have a flattened top.

The Tupelo is the very opposite of the ash in its general characters; the one is precisely regular in its habits, the other eccentric and grotesque. The leaves and small branches of the ash are opposite, those of the Tupelo alternate; the one has a coarse, the other a finely divided spray: so that there are no two trees of the forest so entirely unlike. It is remarkable that an isolated situation, which is favorable to symmetry and good proportions in other trees, increases the specific peculiarities of the Tupelo. If it has stood alone and sent forth its branches without restraint, it then displays the most grotesque irregularity, showing that its normal habit of growth is eccentric.

The foliage of the Tupelo is remarkable for its fine glossy verdure. The leaves are oval, narrowing toward the stem and rounded at the extremity. The flowers are greenish and inconspicuous, borne in minute umbels on the end of a long peduncle. They produce small berries of a deep blue color, containing a hard stone. This tree is one of the brightest ornaments of our forest in autumn; the fine green color of its foliage attracts our attention in summer, and in winter its grotesque forms, rising out of the shallow meres, yield a romantic interest to these solitary places. It is not well adapted to dressed grounds, but harmonizes only with rude, desolate, and wild scenery.

THE HORNBEAM.

The Hornbeams, of which in New England there are two species belonging to a different genus, are small trees, rather elegant in their shape, and remarkable for the toughness and hardness of their wood. The American Hornbeam, or Blue Beech, is distinguished by its fluted trunk, which, as Emerson describes it, “is a short irregular pillar, not unlike the massive reeded columns of Egyptian architecture, with projecting ridges, which run down from each side of the lower branches. The branches are irregular, waving or crooked, going out at various but large angles, and usually from a low point on its trunk.” Old Gerard remarks concerning the English Hornbeam: “The wood or timber is better for arrows and shafts, pulleys for mills, and such like devices, than elm or witch-hazel; for in time it waxeth so hard that the toughness and hardness of it may rather be compared to horn than to wood; and therefore it was called Hornbeam.”

The foliage of the American Hornbeam resembles that of black birch, neatly corrugated, of a delicate verdure in summer, and assuming a fine tint of varying crimson and scarlet in the autumn. The name of Blue Beech was applied to it from the similarity of its branches to the common beech-tree, while their surface is bluish instead of an ashen color. Though existing in every part of the country, it is not abundant anywhere, and is not in any tract of woodland the principal timber. It is most conspicuous on the borders of woods, by the sides of roads lately constructed. The scarcity of trees of this species near old roadsides has been caused by the value of their timber, which is cut for mechanical purposes wherever it may be found. The wood of this tree is used for levers, for the spokes of wheels, and for nearly all other purposes which require extreme hardness of the material used.

THE HOP HORNBEAM.

The Hop Hornbeam is a very different tree from the one just described, resembling it only in the toughness of its wood, whence the name of Lever-Wood has been very generally applied to it. This tree is rarely seen by the wayside. Those only know it whose occupation has led them to seek it for its service in the arts, or those who have examined it in their botanical rambles. It is a small tree, that affects the habit of the elm in its general appearance, of the birch in its inflorescence, and of the beech in the upward tendency of its small branches. It is so much like the elm in the style of its foliage, in the fine division and length of its slender spray, and in the color and appearance of its bark, that it might easily be mistaken for a small elm, without any of its drooping habit. It does not, like the elm, however, break into any eccentric modes of growth. A striking peculiarity of this tree is the multitude of hop-like capsular heads that contain the seeds.

INSECURITY OF OUR FORESTS.

The American continent is so vast, and so large a part of it is still covered with wood, that men are not ready to believe there is any danger of exterminating its forests. Supposing them to be inexhaustible, they are entirely indiscriminate in their method of clearing them, and treat them as if they were of no importance further than they subserve the present wants of the community. They are either reckless or ignorant of their indispensable uses in the economy of nature, and seem purposely to shut their eyes to facts and principles in relation to them which are well known to men of science. Our people look upon the forests as valuable only so far as they supply material for the arts and for fuel, for the construction of houses, ships, and public works; and as there is not much danger of immediately exhausting the supplies for these purposes, the public mind remains quiet, while certain operations are going forward which, if not soon checked by some very powerful restraint, will, before the lapse of another century, reduce half this wide continent to a desert. The science of vegetable meteorology deserves more consideration than it has yet received from our professors of learning. This, if fully explained, would teach men some of the fearful consequences that would ensue if a country were entirely disrobed of its forests, and their relations to birds, insects, and quadrupeds would explain the impossibility of ever restoring them. Man has the power, which, if exercised without regard to the laws of nature, may, at no very distant period, render this earth uninhabitable by man. In his eagerness to improve his present condition, and his senseless grasp for immediate advantages, he may disqualify the earth for a human abode.

This matter has been strangely overlooked by legislators in the several States, though frequently discussed by naturalists and philosophical writers. In spite of the warnings the people have received from learned men, very little thought has been given to the subject. How few persons suspect that in less than a century the greatest affliction this country is doomed to suffer may be caused by the destruction of its forests! Springs once full all the year will be dry every summer and autumn; small rivers will desert their channels; once profitable mill-privileges will cease to be of any value; every shower will produce inundations; every summer will be subject to pernicious droughts. The preservation of the forests in a certain ratio over our whole territory ought to be the subject of immediate legislation in all the States. It is not a part of the plan of this work, however, to treat of woods as a subject of political economy, but rather to prompt our wise men to protect them by statute, by showing our dependence on them for our existence.

It has been said that the intelligence of an educated and civilized community like our own ought to save the country from this evil. But it is our civilization that has created the very danger that threatens us. A country, while it remains in the possession of barbarians, is never disforested. It is a false assurance that the general intelligence of the community will secure them from this danger, unless they have studied the causes of it. A literary and even a scientific education, as popularly conducted, does not imply any great amount of this kind of knowledge. The intelligence of our people would undoubtedly prepare them to understand the subject when explained to them by some one who has made it his special study; but reading does not acquaint a person with facts contained only in books which he never reads, though his habit of reading only for amusement may keep him ignorant of many things which he would otherwise learn from observation. The subject of this essay is not sufficiently exciting to obtain a hearing from the public in a lecture-room. Every avenue of popular information is so greatly obstructed by objects designed only to afford amusement, that science and philosophy, save those branches which some eloquent work has rendered fashionable, have but very little chance to be heard. Even among our literary classes, if you speak of trees and woods, there is only an occasional individual of eccentric habits who seems capable of taking any other than an æsthetic view of their relations to human wants.

But it will be said, if a liberal education does not supply men with the right kind of knowledge on this point, certainly our practical men will understand it. They, I admit, would see at once how much money could be made by cutting down all the trees in any given tract of forest; but they are not the men to be consulted respecting the advantage of any scheme that does not promise to be a profitable investment of capital. Our practical men are the very individuals from whose venal hands it is necessary to protect our forests by legislation. In France, where great evils have followed the destruction of woods, laws have been enacted for restoring and preserving them in certain situations. These laws, however, originated, not with practical men, but with Napoleon III., who obtained his views from men of science. Our people have less knowledge of this subject than the Europeans, who have been compelled to study it by the presence of evils which the Americans are just beginning to experience.

The sentiment of the American public seems to have been excited in favor of trees individually considered, rather than forests. People look upon trees as their friends; and more indignation is generally caused by the felling of a single large tree standing in an open field or by the roadside, than by the destruction of whole acres of woods. Our love of trees is a sort of passion; but we need yet to learn that a wood on a steep hillside is of more importance than as many standards as there are trees in the same wood, scattered upon a plain. This æsthetic sentiment seems to be the only conservative principle that has yet produced any considerable effect in preserving trees and groves. It often extends to groups of trees, and sometimes to large assemblages, especially on estates which have remained through several generations in the possession of one family. But generally the avarice or the necessity of our farmers has been more powerful to devastate, than the taste and sentiment of others to preserve our woods.

I have long been persuaded that, unless the governments of the several States should make this a subject of special legislation, the security of our forests must depend on men of large property in land. Men of wealth, if not learned, are generally in communication with men of learning, from whom they may obtain a knowledge of vegetable meteorology, and not being obliged, by pecuniary necessity, to cut down their woods, will, from a sense of their importance in the economy of nature, become their preservers. The wealth and taste of certain families in every town and village will save a great many trees, groves, and fragments of forest. But if our law-makers neglect to legislate for this end, we must look to the possessors of immense estates, the lords of whole townships, for the preservation of any large tracts of forest.

ORCHARD TREES.

The orchard trees, though but few of them are indigenous, constitute one of the most important groups, considered as objects of beauty, to say nothing of their utility. The most of this class of trees belong to the natural order of rosaceous plants, among which are some of the fairest ornaments of Northern climes. Such are the cherry, the peach, the apple, the pear, also the mountain ash and its allied species down to the mespilus and hawthorn. These trees are suggestive of the farm and its pleasant appurtenances, rather than of rude nature; but so closely allied is Nature to the farm, when under the care of a simple tiller of the soil, and unbedizened by taste, that its accompaniments seem a rightful part of her domain. The simplicity of the rustic farm is in consonance with the fresh, glowing charms of Nature herself. A row of apple-trees overshadowing the wayside forms an arbor in which the rural deities might revel as in their own sylvan retreats; and Nature wears a more charming appearance, when to her own rude costume she adds a wreath twined by the rosy fingers of Pomona.

THE APPLE.

The flowers of the orchard trees are invariably white or crimson, or different shades of these two colors combined. Those of the cherry-tree and the plum-tree are constantly white; those of the pear-tree are also white, with brown or purple anthers; those of the peach and apricot are crimson; those of the apple-tree and quince-tree, when half expanded, are crimson, changing to white or blush-color as they expand. The colors of the hawthorn vary, according to their species, which are numerous, from white to pure crimson. Only a few of the orchard trees have been cultivated for their flowers alone; among these we find a species of cherry with double flowers, and a double-flowering almond, which are common in flower-beds. The Virginia crab-apple is also planted for the fragrance and beauty of its flowers; and if the Siberian species had no material value, it would be cultivated for the beauty of its fruit.

As I have frequently remarked, Nature is not lavish of those forms and hues that constitute pure organic beauty. She displays them very sparingly under ordinary circumstances, that we may not be wearied by their stimulus, and thereby lose our susceptibility to agreeable impressions from homely objects. But at certain times and during very short periods she seems to exert all her powers to fascinate the senses. It is when in these moods that she wreathes the trees with flowers for a short time in the spring, and just before the coming of winter illumines the forest with colors as beautiful as they are evanescent.

The Apple-Tree was one of the first trees planted by the original settlers of New England, who could not in the wilderness raise those fruits that require the skill of the gardener. This tree is indigenous in all parts of Europe, Northern Asia, and North America. On this continent are found two native species, of which the Virginia Crab is the only important one. This tree bears a small green fruit, agreeable, odoriferous, and intensely acid; but our attention is chiefly attracted by its rose-colored flowers, that perfume the whole atmosphere with a sweetness not surpassed by that of the rose. Nothing in the world can exceed the purity of this fragrance, which, in connection with its beautiful flowers, borne in large clusters, render it the admiration of all. The lover of nature is delighted to find this species in a perfectly unsophisticated state, and unimproved by culture, which always tends to insipidity. The Druids paid great reverence to the apple-tree, because the mistletoe grew upon it. In our own fields it is free from this parasite, which is not found on the western continent above the latitude of Virginia.

THE PEAR.

The apple-tree bears some resemblance to the oak in its general outlines, displaying, though inferior in size, more sturdiness than grace. A standard apple-tree commonly resembles a hemisphere, often in diameter exceeding its own height. This shape might be caused by training; but the gardener, by cutting off certain branches, does not change the tendency of the tree to assume its normal shape. The foliage of the apple-tree is rather coarse, stiff, and inelegant, and deficient in purity of verdure, being after it is fully developed of a dusky green, and without tints when ripened, save what may be termed accidental. There is, nevertheless, a certain kind of beauty in an old apple-tree which is seen in no other of the orchard trees, rendering it a very picturesque object in rustic scenery.

The Pear-Tree is taller than the apple-tree, assuming an imperfectly pyramidal shape. Its branches have not the horizontal tendency of the latter; but when growing singly as a standard it greatly surpasses it in dimensions, and many individuals of a former age, that have escaped the axe of horticultural improvement, are noble standards, and of no inferior merit as shade-trees. The foliage of the pear-tree displays some of the tremulous habit of the aspen, owing to the length and slenderness of its leaf-stems. It has, moreover, a gloss that distinguishes it from that of the apple-tree; it is also less stubborn in retaining its verdure, and partially tinted in autumn. The pear-trees which have been raised within the last thirty years are mostly dwarfed, and seldom display their normal shape. They are small, with straggling branches, and unworthy of consideration in a treatise of this kind. The old standards, still, occasionally seen in pastures and fallow lands, are the only ones that affect the beauty of landscape. I have mentioned several points in which the pear-tree surpasses the apple-tree as a beautiful and stately object; but its fruit will bear no comparison in beauty with that of the apple-tree, which produces a greater variety of beautiful fruit than any other tree that is known.

The Quince-Tree, though inferior in size, and not prospering very well on the soil of New England, which is rather too cold for it, deserves a passing remark. In botanical characters it bears more resemblance to the pear than to the apple. The fruit has the same tender and mucilaginous core; the seeds are not enclosed in a dry hull, like those of the apple; and the pulp of the quince, like that of the pear, is granulated, while that of the apple displays in its texture a finer and firmer organization. I may add the well-known fact that the pear may be grafted upon a quince stock, while no such union can be effected between the apple and the quince, or the apple and the pear. The quince-tree makes a very elegant appearance, both when covered with its large white and crimson-stained flowers, and when laden with its golden Hesperian fruit.

The Plum-Tree, in connection with the orchard, hardly deserves mention; but there are two indigenous species which in some places are conspicuous objects in our fields. The beach-plum requires no description. It is a low shrub, very common on many parts of the New England coast and on the islands around it. There is nothing remarkable in its appearance or in the beauty of its fruit, which is of a dark-blue color and about the size of damsons. The other species is a tree of considerable size, which is very beautiful when covered with its ripe scarlet berries. In the State of Maine they are called “plumgranates,” and are very generally used for culinary purposes.

The Peach-Tree, of all the tenants of the garden and orchard, is the most beautiful when in flower, varying in the color of its bloom from a delicate blush to a light crimson. As it puts forth its flowers before the leaves, the tree presents to view the likeness of a magnificent bouquet. When covering many acres of ground, nothing in nature can surpass it in splendor, flowering, as it does, sooner than almost any other tree. Even in New England, where these trees are now seen only in occasional groups, they constitute an important object in the landscape, when in flower. Few persons are aware how much interest the peach-tree adds to the landscape in early spring, by its suggestions as well as its beauty. Since the changeableness of our winter and the harshness of our spring weather have been aggravated by the destruction of our Northern forests, the peach-tree is so liable to perish that its cultivation has been neglected, and trees of this species are now very scarce in New England, except in the gardens of wealthy men. We no longer meet them as formerly in our journeyings through rustic farms, when they were interspersed among apple-trees, adorning every byway in the country.

THE AMERICAN ELM.

I will confess that I join in the admiration so generally bestowed upon the American Elm. To me no other tree seems so beautiful or so majestic. It does not exhibit the sturdy ruggedness of the oak; it is not so evidently defiant of wind and tempest. It seems, indeed, to make no outward pretensions of strength. It bends to the breeze which the oak defies, and is more seldom, therefore, broken by the wind. The Elm is especially the wayside tree of New England, and it forms the most remarkable feature of our domestic landscape. If there be in any other section of our land as many, they are individuals mingled with the forest, and are not so frequent by the roadsides. In this part of the country the Elm has been planted and cherished from the earliest period of our history, and the inhabitants have always looked upon it with admiration, and valued it as a landscape ornament above every other species. It is the most drooping of the drooping trees, except the willow, which it surpasses in grandeur and in the variety of its forms.

Though the Elm has never been consecrated by the muse of classic song, or dignified by making a figure in the paintings of the old masters, the native inhabitant of New England associates the varied forms of this tree with all that is delightful in the scenery or memorable in the history of our land. All spacious avenues are bordered with elms, and their magnificent rows are everywhere familiar to his sight. He has seen them extending their broad and benevolent arms over many a hospitable mansion and many a humble cottage, and equally harmonizing with all. They meet his sight in the public grounds of the city with their ample shade and flowing spray; and he beholds them in the clearing, where they were left by the woodman to stand as solitary landmarks of the devastated space. Every year of his life he has seen the beautiful hangbird weave his pensile nest upon the long and flexible branches, secure from the reach of every foe. From its vast dome of branches and foliage he has listened to the songs of the late and early birds, and under its canopy he has witnessed many a scene of rustic amusement.

To a native of New England, therefore, the Elm has a character more nearly approaching that of sacredness than any other tree. Setting aside the pleasure derived from it as an object of material beauty, it reminds him of the familiar scenes of home and the events of his early life. How many a happy assemblage of children and young persons has been gathered under its shade in the sultry noons of summer! How many a young May queen has been crowned under its tasselled roof, when the greensward was just daisied with the early flowers of spring! And how often has the weary traveller rested from his journey under its wide-spreading boughs, and from a state of weariness and vexation, when o’erspent by heat and length of way, subsided into quiet thankfulness and content!

In my own mind the Elm is intimately allied with those old dwelling-houses which were built in the early part of the last century, and form one of the principal remaining features of New England home architecture during that period. They are known by their broad and ample but low-studded rooms, their two stories in front, their numerous windows with small panes, their single chimney in the centre of the roof, that sloped down to one story in the rear, and their general homely appearance, reminding us of the simplicity of life that characterized our people before the Revolution. Their very homeliness is attractive, by leaving the imagination free to dwell upon their interesting suggestions. Not many of these venerable houses are now extant; but whenever we see one, it is almost invariably accompanied by its Elm, standing upon the green open space that slopes down from it in front, waving its long branches in melancholy grandeur above the old homestead, and drooping, as with sorrow, over the infirmities of its old companion of a century.

Early in April the Elm puts forth its flowers, of a dark maroon color, in numerous clusters, fringing the long terminal spray, and filling up the whole space so effectually that the branches can hardly be seen; they appear at the same time with the crimson flowers of the red maple, and give the tree a very sombre appearance. The seeds ripen early, and being small and chaffy are wafted in all directions and carried to great distances by the wind. In the early part of June, soon after the leaves are expanded, the Elm displays the most beauty. At this time only can its verdure be considered brilliant: for the leaf soon fades to a dull green, and displays no tints, except that of a rusty yellow in the autumn. In perfectly healthy elms, standing on a deep soil, the brightness of the foliage is retained to a later period; but the trees near Boston have suffered so much from the ravages of the cankerworm that their health is injured, and their want of vitality is shown by the premature fading and dropping of their foliage.

Nothing can exceed the American Elm in a certain harmonious combination of sturdiness and grace,—two qualities which are seldom united. Along with its superior magnitude, we observe a great length and slenderness of its branches, without anything in the combination that indicates weakness. It is very agreeable to witness the union, under any circumstances, of two interesting or admirable traits of character which are supposed to be incompatible. Hence the complacency we feel when we meet a brave man who is amiable and polite, or a learned man who is neither reserved nor pedantic. A slender vine, supported by a sturdy tree, forms a very agreeable image; not less delightful is that consonance we perceive in a majestic Elm, formed by the union of grandeur with the gracefulness of its own flowing drapery.

The Elm is generally subdivided into several equal branches, diverging from a common centre at a small distance above the ground. The height of this divergence depends on the condition of the tree when it was a seedling, whether it grew in a forest or in an open field; and the angle made by these branches is much wider when it obtained its growth in an isolated situation. The shape of different elms varies more than that of any other known species. It is indeed almost the only tree which may be said to exhibit more than one normal figure, setting aside those variations of form which are the natural effects of youth and age. The American Elm never displays one central shaft to which the branches are subordinate, like the English Elm; or rather, I should say, that when it has only a single shaft it is without any limbs, and is surrounded only with short and slender twigs. This leads me to speak of its normal diversities of shape, which were originally described by Mr. Emerson under several types.

THE DOME.

This is the form which the Elm seems most prone to assume when it stands from the time it was a seedling until it attains its full stature in an open space. It then shows a broad hemispherical head, formed by branches of nearly equal size, issuing chiefly from a common centre, diverging first at a small angle, and gradually spreading outward with a curve that may be traced throughout their length. A considerable number of our roadside elms are specimens more or less imperfect of this normal type.

THE VASE FORM.

One of the most admirable of these different forms is that of the vase. The base is represented by the roots of the tree as they project above the ground, making a sort of pedestal for the trunk. The neck of the vase is the trunk before it is subdivided. The middle of the vase consists of the lower part of the branches as they swell outwards with a graceful curve, then gradually diverge, until they bend over at their extremities and form the lip of the vase by a circle of terminal spray. Perfect specimens of this beautiful form are rare, but in a row or a grove of elms there are always a few individuals that approximate to this type.

THE PARASOL.

The neatest and most beautiful of these forms is the parasol. This variety is seen in those elms which have grown to their full height in the forest, and were left by the woodman in the clearing; for such is the general admiration of this tree, that great numbers of them are left in clearings in all parts of the country. The State of Maine abounds in trees of this form, sending forth almost perpendicularly a number of branches, that spread out rather suddenly at a considerable height, in the shape of an umbrella. Trees of this type have much of that grandeur which is caused by great height and small dimensions, as observed in a palm-tree. A remarkable trait in the character of the Elm is, that, unlike other trees, it seldom loses its beauty, and is often improved in shape, by growing while young in a dense assemblage. It is simply modified into a more slender shape, usually subdivided very near the ground into several branches that diverge but little until they reach the summit of the wood. Other trees, when they have grown in a dense wood, form but a single shaft, without lateral branches.

THE PLUME.

The most singular of the forms assumed by the Elm, and which cannot be regarded as of a normal character, is the plume, caused by some peculiar conditions attending its early growth. The shaft is sometimes double, but usually not divided at all, except into two or three small branches at its very summit. It is perpendicular to near three fourths of its height, and then bends over, like one of the outer branches of a normal-shaped Elm. This whole tree, whether double or single, is covered from the ground to its summit with a dense embroidery of vine-like twigs that cluster round it in all ways, often inverted, as if it were covered with a woody vine. The cause of this form seems to be the removal of the tree into an uncongenial soil, that is too scanty and innutritious to sustain a healthy growth. Yet I have seen some trees of this shape in clearings. They do not seem to be diseased, yet they are evidently in a stunted condition. One of the most remarkable of the plume elms which I have seen stands in the northern part of Danvers, near the point where the Essex Railroad crosses the Ipswich River. I have observed a similar habit of growth in some English elms, but their shaft is always perpendicular.

THE ENGLISH ELM.

The English Elm may be seen on Boston Common, and in front of old mansions in Medford and other ancient towns in Massachusetts. Very few trees of this species, however, have been planted since the Revolution. This royal Elm seems to have lost favor when republicanism took the place of monarchy. Yet in many points the English Elm is superior to the American species. It is not a drooping tree; it resembles the oak in its general form, but surpasses it in height. The trunk is not subdivided; throughout its entire length, the branches are attached to it by wide angles, sometimes spread out in an almost horizontal direction. Selby remarks, that, “in point of magnitude, grandeur of form, and majestic growth, the English Elm has few competitors in the British sylva.” In the form of the leaf and spray it closely resembles the American tree; but the leaf is of a brighter green, it comes out several days earlier in the spring, and continues green in the fall a week or ten days after the American elm has become entirely denuded. The same difference, in a less degree, has been observed in the leafing and falling of the leaf of all European trees, compared with their kindred species in the American forest.

THE CHERRY-TREE.

Among our fruit-trees the Cherry occupies the most conspicuous place, considered with reference either to shade or ornament, surpassing all the others in size and in comeliness of growth. All the species are handsome trees, and some of them are of great stature. They are natives of all countries in the northern temperate zone, but not of any region south of the equator. The three most remarkable species of the family are the common garden Cherry, or Mazard, which is believed to be a native of Asia; the Great Northern Cherry, or Gean, of Europe; and the Black Cherry of the United States.

THE BLACK CHERRY.

The Black Cherry, which is a tree of the first magnitude in favorable regions, is only a middle-sized tree in the New England States. In the South and West, especially on the banks of the Ohio River, it attains a very great size, rising sometimes to one hundred feet, according to Michaux, with a corresponding diameter. It is sensitive to the extremes both of cold and heat, and to an excess either of dryness or moisture. In Maine it is only a small tree, being checked in its growth by the severe Northern winters. Very far south it suffers from the hot and dry summers, but prospers well in the mountainous parts. It forms immense forests in many districts of North America, in company with the honey locust, the black walnut, the red elm, and the oak. It is sufficiently common in New England to constitute an important ingredient of our wood scenery, and though indigenous, it is most abundant in lands which have been modified by cultivation.

This tree differs very obviously in its ramification from the garden cherry, in which the branches are always subordinate to the trunk, and arranged in irregular whorls and stages, one above another, so that, if they were horizontal, they would resemble those of a fir-tree. The Black Cherry tree, on the contrary, is subdivided in such a manner that the main stem cannot easily be traced above the lower junction of the branches, except in those which have grown in a forest. The branches are spread out more loosely, without the least of any arrangement in whorls, and their terminations are longer and smaller. The leaves of the two trees are also widely different: those of the garden cherry are broad, ovate, rough, and serrate; those of the American tree are lanceolate and smooth, and almost as slender as the leaves of the willow. The one bears its flowers and fruit in racemes, the other in round clusters or umbels. The trunk and bark of the two species are similar, both resembling the black birch in the properties of their wood and the outside appearance of their bark. The branches of the Wild Cherry are too straggling and sparse to make a beautiful tree, and the leaves being small and narrow, the whole mass is wanting in depth of shade.

THE CHOKE CHERRY.

When we are rambling in rustic lanes, that lead through rudely cultivated grounds, we frequently meet with groups of tall handsome shrubs, covered in May with a profusion of white flowers, and in August heavily laden with bright scarlet fruit. Such is the Choke Cherry, a small tree with which all are familiar from their frequent disappointment on attempting to eat its fruit. Its promises to the sight are not fulfilled to the taste. Though of an agreeable flavor, it is exceedingly harsh and astringent. This is a more beautiful tree when in flower than the black cherry, though it is generally a mere shrub, never rising above fifteen or twenty feet in height. The racemes, when in flower, are not drooping, as they are when laden with fruit, but stand out at right angles with the branch, completely surrounding it, and giving to every slender twig the appearance of a long white plume. In the eastern part of Massachusetts I have found this species, as well as the black cherry, in old graveyards,—so frequently, indeed, that in my early days these trees were associated with graves, as the Lombardy poplar is with ancient avenues. I suppose their frequency in these places to be caused by the birds dropping the seeds at the foot of the gravestones, where they quickly germinate, and are protected, when growing, by the stone beside them.

The cultivation of the Gean, or Great Northern Cherry of Europe, which was named by Linnæus the bird cherry, is encouraged in Great Britain and on the Continent of Europe for the benefit of the birds, which are regarded as the most important checks to the over-multiplication of insects. The fact, not yet understood in America, that the birds which are the most mischievous as consumers of fruit are the most useful as destroyers of insects, is well known by all the farmers in Europe; and while we destroy the birds to save the fruit, and sometimes cut down the fruit-trees to starve the birds, the Europeans more wisely plant them for their sustenance and accommodation.

THE SNOWY MESPILUS.

This tree, which is conspicuous in the early part of May from its profusion of white flowers in the swamps, is very little known except in Canada and some of the northern provinces of this continent. Yet it is far from being rare, and is one of the most elegant of the small trees in our native forest; being allied to the mountain ash, branching in a similar manner, but exhibiting a neater and more beautiful spray. It is exclusively a Northern tree, and one of the earliest to put forth flowers and leaves after the elm and the red maple. This tree is spread over almost all the northern part of the American continent and the Alleghany Mountains. From its habit of flowering at the time of the annual appearance of the shad in our waters, it is very frequently called the Shad-bush.

The Snowy Mespilus is one of those trees which botanists have described under so many different names that I should shrink from the task, if the duty were assigned me, of collecting all that have been applied to it. But whenever there is much contrariety of opinion among botanists respecting the generic rank and denomination of any plant, I usually resort to its earliest botanical title. Indeed, I feel assured that the nice distinctions upon which later botanists have founded its claims to a different generic position are very much of the same nature as those which divide theologians, whose ecclesiastical acuteness enables them to discern a palpable difference in two doctrinal points, neither of which to an unregenerate mind have any meaning at all. I therefore prefer to call this tree a Mespilus, after Linnæus and Michaux, to save myself the trouble of those infinitesimal investigations that might convince me of the propriety of placing it in every one of a dozen other different genera.

The Shad-bush is a small tree inclining to grow in clumps, instead of making a single stem from the root, and is seldom quite so large or so tall as the mountain ash. The leaves are small and alternate, resembling those of a pear-tree, but more elegant, and covered with a soft silken down on their first appearance; as the foliage ripens, it becomes smooth and glossy. The flowers are white, but without beauty, growing in loose panicles at the ends of the branches. The product of these flowers is a small fruit, about the size of the common wild gooseberry, of a dark crimson color and a very agreeable flavor. This fruit is used very generally in the northern provinces, where the tree is larger and more productive than in New England.

THE CHOKEBERRY.

A smaller species of mespilus, familiarly known as the Chokeberry, is more interesting as a flowering plant. It is a slender shrub, with beautiful finely toothed leaves, bearing flowers in clusters very much like those of the hawthorn, with white petals and purple or crimson anthers. The flowers stand erect, but the berries, which are very astringent and are often gathered carelessly with whortleberries, hang from the branches in full pendent clusters. The flowers of this plant are very conspicuous in the latter part of May in all our meadows.

THE MOUNTAIN ASH.

The Mountain Ash, or Rowan-tree, is beautiful in all its conditions and at all seasons. Its elegant pinnate foliage, not flowing, like that of the locust, but neat, firm, and finely serrate, and its flowers, in large clusters, like those of the elder, render the tree very conspicuous when in blossom. But its greatest ornament is the scarlet fruit that hangs from every branch in the autumn. We could hardly be persuaded to introduce the Mountain Ash into a picture. The primness of its form injures it as a picturesque object in landscape. Its beauty is such as children admire, who are guided by a sense of its material attractions, and do not generally prize a tree except for its elegance and colors. The beauty, however, which attracts the sensual eye in this case is deceitful, for its fruit is of a bitter, sour flavor, and incapable of improvement. European writers say that thrushes are very fond of this fruit. In our land it remains untouched, at least until late in the season, after the black cherries are gone, which tempt all kinds of birds by their superior flavor. The American Mountain Ash differs from the European tree only by its smaller fruit.

I have said that the Mountain Ash is wanting in picturesque qualities; but my remark applies only to its form and habit of growth. On the other hand, it is peculiarly the tree of romance, being remarkable for the many superstitious customs connected with it. According to Evelyn, “There is no churchyard in Wales without a Mountain Ash-tree planted in it, as the yew-trees are in the churchyards of England. So on a certain day of the year everybody in Wales religiously wears a cross made of the wood.” Gilpin says that in his time “a stump of the Mountain Ash was generally found in some old burial-place, or near the circle of a Druid’s temple, the rites of which were formerly performed under its shade.”

Many of the inhabitants of Great Britain still believe that a branch of the Rowan-tree carried about with them is a charm against the evil influences of witchcraft. It is remarkable that similar superstitions connected with this tree prevail among the North American Indians; and it is not improbable that they were introduced by the early Welsh colonists, before the discovery of America by Columbus.

MOUNTAIN ASH.

RELATIONS OF TREES TO WATER.

There is a spot which I used to visit some years ago, that seemed to me one of the most enchanting of natural scenes. It was a level plain of about ten acres, surrounded by a narrow stream that was fed by a steep ridge forming a sort of amphitheatre round more than half its circumference. The ridge was a declivity of near a hundred feet in height, and so steep that you could climb it only by taking hold of the trees and bushes that covered it. The whole surface consisted of a thin stratum of soil deposited upon a slaty rock; but the growth of trees upon this slope was beautiful and immense, and the water that was constantly trickling from a thousand fountains kept the ground all the year green with mosses and ferns, and gay with many varieties of flowers. The soil was so rich in the meadow enclosed by this ridge, and annually fertilized by the débris washed from the hills, that the proprietor every summer filled his barns with hay, which was obtained from it without any cultivation.

I revisited this spot a few years since, after a long period of absence. A new owner, “a man of progress and enterprise,” had felled the trees that grew so beautifully on the steep sides of this elevation, and valley and hill have become a dreary and unprofitable waste. The thin soil that sustained the forest, no longer protected by the trees and their undergrowth, has been washed down into the valley, leaving nothing but a bald, rocky surface, whose hideousness is scarcely relieved by a few straggling vines. The valley is also ruined; for the inundations to which it is subject after any copious rain destroy every crop that is planted upon it, and render it impracticable for tillage. It is covered with sand heaps; the little stream that glided round it, fringed with azaleas and wild roses, has disappeared, and the land is reduced to a barren pasture.

The general practice of the pioneers of civilization on this continent was to cut down the wood chiefly from the uplands and the lower slopes of the hills and mountains. They cleared those tracts which were most valuable for immediate use and cultivation. Necessity led them to pursue the very course required by the laws of nature for improving the soil and climate. The first clearings were made chiefly for purposes of agriculture; and as every farm was surrounded by a rampart of woods, it was sheltered from the force of the winds and pleasantly open to the sun. But when men began to fell the woods to supply the demands of towns and cities for fuel and lumber, these clearings were gradually deprived of their shelter, by levelling the surrounding forest and opening the country to the winds from every quarter. But the clearing of the wood from the plains, while it has rendered the climate more unstable, has not been the cause of inundations or the diminution of streams. This evil has been produced by clearing the mountains and lesser elevations having steep or rocky sides; and if this destructive work is not checked by legislation or by the wisdom of the people, plains and valleys now green and fertile will become profitless for tillage or pasture, and the advantages we shall have sacrificed will be irretrievable in the lifetime of a single generation. The same indiscriminate felling of woods has rendered many a once fertile region in Europe barren and uninhabitable, equally among the cold mountains of Norway and the sunny plains of Brittany.

Our climate suffers more than formerly from summer droughts. Many ancient streams have entirely disappeared, and a still greater number are dry in summer. Boussingault mentions a fact that clearly illustrates the condition to which we may be exposed in thousands of locations on this continent. In the island of Ascension there was a beautiful spring, situated at the foot of a mountain which was covered with wood. By degrees the spring became less copious, and at length failed. While its waters were annually diminishing in bulk, the mountain had been gradually cleared of its forest. The disappearance of the spring was attributed to the clearing. The mountain was again planted, and as the new growth of wood increased, the spring reappeared, and finally attained its original fulness. More to be dreaded than drought, and produced by the same cause,—the clearing of steep declivities of their wood,—are the excessive inundations to which all parts of the country are subject.

If it were in the power of man to dispose his woods and tillage in the most advantageous manner, he might not only produce an important amelioration of the general climate, but he might diminish the frequency and severity both of droughts and inundations, and preserve the general fulness of streams. If every man were to pursue that course which would protect his own grounds from these evils, it would be sufficient to bring about this beneficent result. If each owner of land would keep all his hills and declivities, and all slopes that contain only a thin deposit of soil or a quarry, covered with forest, he would lessen his local inundations from vernal thaws and summer rains. Such a covering of wood tends to equalize the moisture that is distributed over the land, causing it, when showered upon the hills, to be retained by the mechanical action of the trees and their undergrowth of shrubs and herbaceous plants, and by the spongy surface of the soil underneath them, made porous by mosses, decayed leaves, and other débris, so that the plains and valleys have a moderate oozing supply of moisture for a long time after every shower. Without this covering, the water when precipitated upon the slopes, would immediately rush down over an unprotected surface in torrents upon the space below.

Every one has witnessed the effects of clearing the woods and other vegetation from moderate declivities in his own neighborhood. He has observed how rapidly a valley is inundated by heavy showers, if the rising grounds that form its basin are bare of trees and planted with the farmer’s crops. Even grass alone serves to check the rapidity with which the water finds its way to the bottom of the slope. Let it be covered with bushes and vines, and the water flows with a speed still more diminished. Let this shrubbery grow into a forest, and the valley would never be inundated except by a long-continued and flooding rain. Woods and their undergrowth are indeed the only barriers against frequent and sudden inundations, and the only means in the economy of nature for preserving an equal fulness of streams during all seasons of the year.

At first thought, it may seem strange that the clearing of forests should be equally the cause both of drought and inundations; but these apparently incompatible facts are easily explained by considering the different effects produced by woods standing in different situations. An excess of moisture in the valleys comes from the drainage of the hills, and the same conditions that will cause them to be dried up at certain times will cause them to be flooded at others. Nature’s design seems to be to preserve a constant moderate fulness of streams and standing water. This purpose she accomplishes by clothing the general surface of the country with wood. When man disturbs this arrangement, he may produce evil consequences which he had never anticipated. We are not, however, to conclude that we may not improve the soil and climate by changing the original condition of this wooded surface. The clearing of the forest may be reduced to a science whose laws are as sure and unexceptionable as those of mechanics and hydraulics. Though it has not gained much attention from the public mind, it is well understood by the learned who have made this branch of vegetable meteorology their special study. Our danger lies in neglecting to apply these laws to operations in the forest, and in preferring to obtain certain immediate commercial advantages, at the risk of inflicting evils of incalculable extent upon a coming generation.

THE LINDEN-TREE.

The Lime or Linden-tree is generally known among our countrymen as the Bass, and was not, before the present century, employed as a wayside tree. The old standards seen in our ancient villages are European Limes. During the past thirty years the American tree has been very generally planted by roadsides, in avenues and pleasure-grounds, and few trees are more highly valued in these situations. But the American has less beauty than the European tree, which is clothed with softer foliage, has a smaller leaf, and a neater and more elegant spray. Our native Lime bears larger and more conspicuous flowers, in heavier clusters, but of inferior sweetness. Both species are remarkable for their size and longevity. The Lime in Great Britain is a tree of first magnitude, frequently rising to the height of eighty or ninety feet, with a trunk of proportional diameter. The American species is not inferior to it in size or altitude. Some of the largest trees in Western New York are Limes.

The Lime has in all ages been celebrated for the fragrance of its flowers and the excellence of the honey made from them. The famous Mount Hybla was covered with Lime-trees. The aroma from its flowers is like that of mignonette; it perfumes the whole atmosphere, though never disagreeable from excess, and is perceptible to the inhabitants of all the beehives within the circuit of a mile. The Lime is also remarkable for a general beauty of proportion, a bright verdure contrasting finely with the dark-colored branches, and an outline regular and symmetrical without formality. When covered with leaves, it bears some resemblance in outward form to the maple, but surpasses it, when leafless, in the beauty of its ramification. The leaves are roundish heart-shaped, of a clear and lively green in summer, but acquiring a spotted and rusty look in autumn, and adding nothing to the splendors of that season. In the spring, however, no tree of our forest displays a more beautiful verdure before it acquires the uniform dark green of the summer woods.

The branches of the Lime have a very dark-colored surface, distinguishing it from other trees that agree with it in size and general appearance. The bark of the maple, for example, is light and of an ashen-gray tint, and that of the poplars a sort of greenish clay-color. This dark hue renders the spray of the Lime very conspicuous, after a shower, and in spring, when all the leaves are of a light and brilliant green; but these incidental beauties are not very lasting. The branches, being alternate, are very minutely subdivided, and their extremities neatly drawn inwards, so that in a denuded state it is one of our finest winter ornaments. The spray of the beech is more airy, that of the elm more flowing, and that of the oak more curiously netted and interwoven; but the spray of the Lime is remarkable for its freedom from all defect.

George Barnard, who, being a painter, looks upon trees as they are more or less adapted to his own art, remarks:—

“When young, or indeed up to an age perhaps of sixty or seventy years, the Lime has a formal appearance, with little variation in its masses of foliage; but let some accident occur, such as the breaking down of a large branch, or the removal of a neighboring tree, it then presents a charming picture.”

One of the curiosities of the Lime-tree that deserves notice is a certain winged appendage to the seed, which is a round nut about the size of a pea. This is attached to a long stem, from the end of which, joined to it obliquely, descends a ribbon-like bract, causing it, when it falls, to spin round and travel a long distance upon the wind. If the tree stands on the borders of a pond, where the seeds fall upon the surface, this winged appendage performs the part of a sail, and causes the seeds to be wafted to different points of the opposite shore.

THE KALMIA.

The Kalmia, on account of its superficial resemblance to the green bay-tree, often called the American laurel, is more nearly allied to the heath. The name of Kalmia, which is more musical than many others of similar derivation, was given to this genus of evergreen shrubs by Linnæus, in honor of Peter Kalm, a distinguished botanist and one of his pupils. This is exclusively an American family of plants, containing only five species, three of which are natives of New England soil and two of them among our most common shrubs.

THE MOUNTAIN LAUREL.

Not one of our native shrubs is so generally admired as the Mountain Laurel; no other equals it in glowing and magnificent beauty. But the “patriots” who plunder the fields of its branches and flowers for gracing the festivities of the “glorious Fourth” will soon exterminate this noble plant from our land. There are persons who never behold a beautiful object, especially if it be a flower or a bird, without wishing to destroy it for some selfish, devout, or patriotic purpose. The Mountain Laurel is not so showy as the rhododendron, with its deeper crimson bloom; but nothing can exceed the minute beauty of its individual flowers, the neatness of their structure, and the delicacy of their shades as they pass from rose-color to white on different bushes in the same group. The flower is monopetalous, expanded to a cup with ten angles and scalloped edges. “At the circumference of the disk on the inside,” says Darwin, “are ten depressions or pits, accompanied with corresponding prominences on the outside. In these depressions the anthers are found lodged at the time when the flower expands. The stamens grow from the base of the corolla, and bend outwardly, so as to lodge the anthers in the cells of the corolla. From this confinement they liberate themselves, during the period of flowering, and strike against the sides of the stigma.” This curious internal arrangement of parts renders the flower very beautiful on close examination. The flowers are arranged in flat circular clusters at the terminations of the branches.

We seldom meet anything in the forest more attractive than the groups of Mountain Laurel, which often cover extensive slopes, generally appearing on the edge of a wood, and becoming more scarce as they extend into the interior or wander outwardly from the border. But if we meet with an opening in the wood where the soil is favorable,—some little sunny dell or declivity,—another still more beautiful group opens on the sight, sometimes occupying the whole space. The Mountain Laurel does not constitute the undergrowth of any family of trees, but avails itself of the protection of a wood where it can flourish without being overshadowed by it. In the groups on the outside of the wood, the flowers are usually of a fine rose-color, fading as they are more shaded, until in the deep forest we find them, and the buds likewise, of a pure white. I am not acquainted with another plant that is so sensitive to the action of light upon the color of its flowers. The buds, except in the dark shade, before they expand, are of a deeper red than the flowers, and hardly less beautiful.

The Mountain Laurel delights in wet places, in springy lands on rocky declivities where there is an accumulation of soil, and in openings surrounded by woods, where the land is not a bog, but wet enough to abound in ferns. In such places the Kalmia, with its bright evergreen leaves, forms elegant masses of shrubbery, even when it is not in flower. Indeed, its foliage is hardly less conspicuous than its flowers. I believe the Kalmias are not susceptible of modification by the arts of the florist. Nature has endowed them with a perfection that cannot be improved.

THE LOW LAUREL, OR LAMBKILL.

The low Laurel, or small Kalmia, is plainly one of nature’s favorite productions; for, the wilder and ruder the situation, the more luxuriant is this plant and the more beautiful are its flowers. These are of a deep rose-color, arranged in crowded whorls around the extremities of the branches, with the recent shoot containing a tuft of newly formed leaves surmounting each cluster of flowers. This plant, though not celebrated in horticultural literature or song, is one of the most exquisite productions of nature. Many other shrubs which are more showy are not to be compared with this in the delicate structure of its flowers and in the beauty of their arrangement and colors. Of this species the most beautiful individuals are found on the outer edge of their groups.

There has been much speculation about the supposed poisonous qualities of this plant and its allied species. Nuttall thought its flowers the source of the deleterious honey discovered in the nests of certain wild bees. There is also a general belief that its leaves are poisonous to cattle and flocks. But all positive evidence is wanting to support any of these notions. The idea associated with the name of this species is a vulgar error arising from a corruption of the generic name, from which Lambkill may be thus derived,—Kalmia, Kallamia, Killamia, Killam, Lambkill. There is no other way of explaining the origin of its common English name. I have never been able to discover an authentic account, and have never known an instance of the death of a sheep or a lamb from eating the leaves of this plant. It is an error having its origin in a false etymology; and half the notions that prevail in the world with regard to the medical virtues and other properties of plants have a similar foundation.

It is stated in an English manual of Medical Botany that the brown powder that adheres to the petioles of the different species of Kalmia, Andromeda, and Rhododendron is used by the North American Indians as snuff.

KALMIA.

MOTIONS OF TREES.

While Nature, in the forms of trees, in the color of their foliage and the gracefulness of their spray, has displayed a great variety of outline and tinting, and provided a constant entertainment for the sight, she has increased their attractions by endowing them with a different susceptibility to motion from the action of the winds. In their motions we perceive no less variety than in their forms. The different species differ like animals; some being graceful and easy, others stiff and awkward; some calm and intrepid, others nervous and easily agitated. Perhaps with stricter analogy we might compare them to human beings; for we find trees that represent the man of quiet and dignified deportment, also the man of excited manners and rapid gesticulations. Some trees, like the fir, having stiff branches and foliage, move awkwardly backward and forward in the wind, without any separate motions of their leaves. While we admire the symmetrical and stately forms of such trees, we are reminded of men who present a noble personal appearance, accompanied with ungainly manners.

Some trees, having stiff branches with flexible leaves, do not bend to a moderate breeze, but their foliage readily yields to the motion of the wind. This habit is observed in the oak and the ash, in all trees that have a pendulous foliage and upright or horizontal branches. The poplars possess this habit in a remarkable degree, and it is proverbial in the aspen. It is also conspicuous in the common pear-tree and in the small white birch. Other trees, like the American elm, wave their branches gracefully, with but little apparent motion of their leaves. We observe the same habit in the weeping willow, and indeed in all trees with a long and flexible spray. The wind produces by its action on these a general sweeping movement without any rustle. It is easy to observe, when walking in a grove, that the only graceful motions come from trees with drooping branches, because these alone are long and slender.

The very rapid motion of the leaves of the aspen has given origin to some remarkable superstitions. The Highlanders of Scotland believe the wood of this tree to be that of which the holy cross was made, and that its leaves are consequently never allowed to rest. Impressed with the awfulness of the tragedy of the crucifixion, they are constantly indicating to the winds the terrors that agitate them. The small white birch displays considerable of the same motion of the leaves; but we take little notice of it, because they are softer and produce less of a rustling sound. The flickering lights and shadows observed when walking under these trees, on a bright noonday, have always been admired. All these habits awaken our interest in trees and other plants by assimilating them to animated things.

Much of the beauty of the silver poplar comes from its glittering lights, when it presents the green upper surface of its foliage, alternating rapidly with the white silvery surface beneath. This we may readily perceive even in cloudy weather, but in the bright sunshine the contrasts are very brilliant. In all trees, however, we observe this glittering beauty of motion in the sunshine. The under part of leaves being less glossy than the upper part, there is in the assemblage the same tremulous lustre that appears on the rippled surface of a lake by moonlight.

We observe occasionally other motions which I have not described, such as the uniform bending of the whole tree. In a strong current of wind, tall and slender trees especially attract our attention by bending over uniformly like a plume. This habit is often seen in the white birch, a tree that in its usual assemblages takes a plumelike form. When a whole grove of white birches is seen thus bending over in one direction from the action of a brisk wind, they seem like a procession of living forms. In a storm we watch with peculiar interest the bending forms of certain tall elms, such as we often see in clearings, with their heads bowed down almost to the ground by the force of the tempest. It is only the waves of the ocean and the tossing of its billows that can afford us so vivid an impression of the sublimity of a tempest as the violent swaying of a forest and the roaring of the winds among the lofty tree-tops.

The motions of an assemblage of trees cannot be observed except from a stand that permits us to look down upon the surface formed by their summits. We should then perceive that pines and firs, with all the stiffness of their branches, display a great deal of undulating motion. These undulations or wavy movements are particularly graceful in a grove of hemlocks, when they are densely assembled without being crowded. It is remarkable that one of the most graceful of trees belongs to a family which are distinguished by their stiffness and formality. The hemlock, unlike other firs and spruces, has a very flexible spray, with leaves also slightly movable, which are constantly sparkling when agitated by the wind. If we look down from an opposite point, considerably elevated, upon a grove of hemlocks when they are exposed to brisk currents of wind, they display a peculiar undulating movement of the branches and foliage, made more apparent by the glitter of their leaves.

The surface of any assemblage of trees when in motion bears a close resemblance to the waves of the sea. But hemlocks represent its undulations when greatly agitated, without any broken lines upon its surface. Other firs display in their motions harsher angles and a somewhat broken surface of the waves. We see the tops of these trees and their extreme branches awkwardly swaying backwards and forwards, and forming a surface like that of the sea when it is broken by tumultuous waves of a moderate height. The one suggests the idea of tumult and contention; the other, that of life and motion combined with serenity and peace.

THE TULIP-TREE.

The Tulip-tree is pronounced by Dr. Bigelow “one of the noblest trees, both in size and beauty, of the American forest.” It certainly displays the character of immensity,—a quality not necessarily allied with those features we most admire in landscape. It is not very unlike the Canada poplar, and is designated by the name of White Poplar in the Western States. The foliage of this tree has been greatly extolled, but it has the heaviness which is apparent in the foliage of the large-leaved poplars, without its tremulous habit. The leaves, somewhat palmate in their shape, are divided into four pointed lobes, the middle rib ending abruptly, as if the fifth lobe had been cut off. The flowers, which are beautiful, but not showy, are striped with green, yellow, and orange. They do not resemble tulips, however, so much as the flowers of the abutilon and althea.

This tree is known in New England rather as an ornamental tree than as a denizen of the forest. Its native habitats are nearly the same with those of the magnolia, belonging to an allied family. There is not much in the proportions of this tree to attract our admiration, except its size. But its leaves are glossy and of a fine dark green, its branches smooth, and its form symmetrical. It is a tree that agrees very well with dressed grounds, and its general appearance harmonizes with the insipidity of artificial landscape. It is wanting in the picturesque characters of the oak and the tupelo, and inferior in this respect to the common trees of our forest.

THE MAGNOLIA.

The Magnolia, though, excepting one species, a stranger to New England soil, demands some notice. Any one who has never seen the trees of this genus in their native soil can form no correct idea of them. I would not say, however, that they would fall short of his conceptions of their splendor. When I first beheld one of the large magnolias, though it answered to my previous ideas of its magnificence, I thought it a less beautiful tree than the Southern cypress, and less picturesque than the live-oak, the black walnut, and some other trees I saw there. The foliage of the Magnolia is very large and heavy, and so dark as to look gloomy. It is altogether too sombre a tree in the open landscape, and must add to the gloom of any wood which it occupies, without yielding to it any other striking character.

There are several species of Magnolia cultivated in pleasure-grounds, the selection being made from those bearing a profusion of flowers. The only one that grows wild in New England is of small stature, sometimes called the Beaver-tree. It inhabits a swamp near Gloucester, about twenty miles from Boston. This place is its northern boundary. The flowers are of a dull white, without any beauty, but possessed of a very agreeable fragrance, causing them to be in great demand. The Magnolia wood is annually stripped both of flowers and branches, and the trees will probably be extirpated before many years by this sort of vandalism.

THE LOCUST.

The waysides in the Middle States do not contain a more beautiful tree than the Locust, with its profusion of pinnate leaves and racemes of flowers that fill the air with the most agreeable odors. In New England the Locust is subject to the ravages of so many different insects that it is commonly stinted in its growth, its branches withered and broken, and its symmetry destroyed. But the deformities produced by the decay of some of its important limbs cannot efface the charm of its fine pensile foliage. In winter it seems devoid of all those proportions we admire in other trees. It rears its tall form, withered, shapeless, and deprived of many valuable parts, without proportional breadth, and wanting in any definite character of outline. Through all the early weeks of spring we might still suppose it would never recover its beauty. But May hangs on those withered boughs a green drapery that hides all their deformity; she infuses into their foliage a perfection of verdure that no other tree can rival, and a beauty in the forms of its leaves that renders it one of the chief ornaments of the groves and waysides. June weaves into this green leafage pendent clusters of flowers of mingled brown and white, filling the air with fragrance, and enticing the bee with odors as sweet as from groves of citron and myrtle.

The finely cut and delicate foliage of the Locust and its jewelled white flowers, hanging gracefully among its dark green leaves, yield it a peculiar style of beauty, and remind us of some of the finer vegetation of the tropics. The leaflets, varying in number from nine to twenty-five on a common stem, have a singular habit of folding over each other in wet and dull weather and in the night, thus displaying a sensitiveness that is remarkable in all the acacia family. The Locust is not highly prized by landscape gardeners, who cannot reconcile its defects to their serpentine walks and their velvety lawns. But I am not sure that the accidental deformities of the Locust may not contribute to its picturesque attractions, when, for example, from its furrowed and knotted trunk a few imperfect limbs project, and suspend over our heads a little canopy of the finest verdure.

Phillips says of the Locust, that, when planted in shrubberies, it becomes the favorite resort of the nightingale, to avail itself of the protection afforded by its thorns. There are many other small birds that seek the protection of thorny bushes for their nests. On the borders of woods, a barberry or hawthorn bush is more frequently selected by the catbird and the yellow-throat than any other shrub. I have observed that the indigo-bird shows a remarkable attachment to the Locust, attracted, perhaps, by some favorite insect that lives upon it. The only nests of this bird I have ever discovered were in the branches of the Locust. It is worthy of notice, that, notwithstanding its rapid and thrifty growth in favorable situations, this tree never occupies exclusively any large tracts of country. It is found only in small groups, scattered chiefly on the outside of woods containing different species. The foliage of the Locust, like that of other leguminous plants, is very fertilizing to the soil, causing the grassy turf that is shaded by this tree to be always green and luxuriant.

THE HONEY LOCUST.

The Honey Locust is not an uncommon tree in the enclosures of suburban dwellings, and by the waysides in many parts of the country. Some of them have attained a great height, overtopping all our shade-trees except the elm and the oak. This tree in June bears flowers without any beauty, hanging from the branches in small greenish aments. The outer bark peels from the trunk, like that of the shellbark hickory. The thorns investing the trunk as well as the boughs are very singular, consisting of one long spine with two and sometimes more shorter ones projecting out of it, like two little branches, near its base. Three is the prevailing number of these compound thorns. Hence the name of Three-Thorned Acacia applied to the Honey Locust.

This tree bears some resemblance to the common Locust; but its leaflets are smaller, and of a lighter green. It is not liable, however, to the attacks of insects, and is seen, therefore, in all its normal and beautiful proportions. It displays much of the elegance of the tropical acacias in the minute division and symmetry of its compound leaves. These are of a light and brilliant green, and lie flat upon the branches, giving them a fan-like appearance, such as we observe in the hemlock. Though its principal branches are given out at an acute angle, many of them are horizontal, extending outwards with frequent contortions. The Honey Locust derives its name from the sweetness of the pulp that envelops the seeds contained in their large flat pods. This tree is not an uncommon hedge plant in Massachusetts, but it is not found in the New England forest. Its native region is the wide valley between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi River.

RELATIONS OF TREES TO THE ATMOSPHERE.

I have not much faith in the science of ignorant men; for the foundations of all knowledge are laid in books; and those only who have read and studied much can possess any considerable store of wisdom. But there are philosophers among laboring swains, whose quaint observations and solutions of nature’s problems are sometimes worthy of record. With these men of untutored genius I have had considerable intercourse, and hence I oftener quote them than the learned and distinguished, whom I have rarely met. The ignorant, from want of knowledge, are always theorists; but genius affords its possessor, how small soever his acquisitions, some glimpses of truth which may be entirely hidden from the mere pedant in science. My philosophic friend, a man of genius born to the plough, entertained a theory in regard to the atmosphere, which, though not strictly philosophical, is so ingenious and suggestive that I have thought an account of it a good introduction to this essay.

My friend, when explaining his views, alluded to the well-known fact that plants growing in an aquarium keep the water supplied with atmospheric air—not with simple oxygen, but with oxygen chemically combined with nitrogen—by some vital process that takes place in the leaves of plants. As the lungs of animals decompose the air which they inspire, and breathe out carbonic-acid gas, plants in their turn decompose this deleterious gas, and breathe out pure atmospheric air. His theory is that the atmosphere is entirely the product of vegetation, and that nature has no other means of composing it; that it is not simply a chemical, but a vital product; and that its production, like its preservation, depends entirely on plants, and would be impossible without their agency. But as all plants united are not equal in bulk to the trees, it may be truly averred that any series of operations or accidents that should deprive the earth entirely of its forests would leave the atmosphere without a source for its regeneration.

The use of the foliage of trees in renovating the atmosphere is not, I believe, denied by any man of science. This theory has been proved to be true by experiments in vital chemistry. The same chemical appropriation of gases and transpiration of oxygen is performed by all classes of vegetables; but any work in the economy of nature assigned to vegetation is the most effectually accomplished by trees. The property of foliage that requires carbonic-acid gas for its breathing purposes, and causes it to give out oxygen, is of vital importance; and it is hardly to be doubted that a close room well lighted by the sun would sustain its healthful atmosphere a longer time, if it were filled with plants in leaf, but not in flower, and occupied by breathing animals, than if the animals occupied it without the plants.

But there is another function performed by the foliage of trees and herbs in which no chemical process is involved,—that of exhaling moisture into the atmosphere after it has been absorbed by the roots. Hence the humidity of this element is greatly dependent on foliage. A few simple experiments will show how much more rapidly and abundantly this evaporation takes place when the soil is covered with growing plants than when the surface is bare. Take two teacups of equal size and fill them with water. Place them on a table, and insert into one of them cuttings of growing plants with their leaves, and let the other stand with water only. In a few hours the water will disappear from the cup containing the plants, while that in the other cup will not be sensibly diminished. Indeed, there is reason to believe that gallons of water might be evaporated into the air by keeping the cup containing the cuttings always full, before the single gill contained in the other cup would disappear. If a few cuttings will evaporate a half-pint of water in twelve hours, we can imagine the vast quantity constantly exhaled into the atmosphere by a single tree. The largest steam-boiler in use, kept constantly boiling, would not probably evaporate more water than one large elm in the same time.

We may judge, from our experiment with the cuttings, that a vastly greater proportion of moisture would be exhaled into the atmosphere from any given surface of ground when covered with vegetation, than from the same amount of uncovered surface, or even of standing water. Plants are indeed the most important existing agents of nature for conveying the moisture of the earth into the air. The quantity of transpiring foliage from a dense assemblage of trees must be immense. The evaporation of water from the vast ocean itself is probably small compared with that from the land which it surrounds. And there is reason to believe that the water evaporated from the ocean would not produce rain enough to sustain vegetation, if by any accident every continent and island were deprived of its trees. The whole earth would soon become a desert. I would remark, in this place, that trees are the agents by which the superfluous waters of the ocean, as they are supplied by rivers emptying into it, are restored to the atmosphere and thence again to the surface of the earth. Trees pump up from great depths the waters as they ooze into the soil from millions of subterranean ducts ramifying in all directions from the bed of the ocean.

LEAF OF HOLLY.

THE HOLLY.

As the hawthorn is consecrated to vernal festivities, the Holly is sacred to those of winter, and the yew to those attending the burial of the dead. In Europe, from the earliest ages, the Holly has been employed for the decoration of churches during Christmas. The poets have made it a symbol of forethought, because its leaves are saved from the browsing of animals by the thorns that surround them; and the berries, concealed by its prickly foliage, are preserved for the use of the winter birds. The Holly is found only in the southern parts of New England. In Connecticut it is common, and in the Middle and Southern States it is a tree of third magnitude. The leaves of the Holly are slightly sinuate or scalloped, and furnished at each point with short spines. It not only retains its foliage in the winter, but it loses none of that brilliancy of verdure that distinguishes it at other seasons.

There seems to be no very notable difference between the American and European Holly. Selby says of the latter: “The size which the Holly frequently attains in a state of nature, as well as when under cultivation, its beauty and importance in forest and woodland scenery, either as a secondary tree or merely as an underwood shrub, justify our placing it among the British forest trees of the second rank.” He adds: “As an ornamental evergreen, whether in the form of a tree or as an undergrowth, the Holly is one of the most beautiful we possess. The deep green glittering foliage contrasts admirably with the rich coral hue of its berries.”

THE SPIRÆA.

In the month of July the wooded pastures are variegated with little groups of shrubbery full of delicate white blossoms in compound pyramidal clusters, attracting more attention from a certain downy softness in their appearance than from their beauty. These plants have received the name of Spiræa from the spiry arrangement of their flowers. The larger species among our wild plants, commonly known as the Meadow-Sweet, in some places as Bridewort, is very frequent on little tussocks and elevations rising out of wet soil. It is a slender branching shrub, bearing a profusion of small, finely serrate and elegant leaves, extending down almost to the roots, and a compound panicle of white impurpled flowers at the ends of the branches. It is well known to all who are familiar with the wood-scenery of New England, and is seen growing abundantly in whortleberry pastures, in company with the small kalmia and the swamp rose. It is a very free bloomer, lasting from June till September, often blending a few solitary spikes of delicate flowers with the tinted foliage of autumn.

THE HARDHACK.

The flowers of the purple Spiræa, or Hardhack, are conspicuous by roadsides, especially where they pass over wet grounds. It delights in the borders of rustic wood-paths, in lanes that conduct from the enclosures of some farm cottage to the pasture, growing all along under the loose stone-wall, where its crimson spikes may be seen waving in the wind with the nodding plumes of the golden-rod and the blue spikes of the vervain, well known as the “Simpler’s Joy.” The Hardhack affords no less pleasure to the simpler, who has used its flowers from immemorial time as an astringent anodyne. There is no beauty in any part of this plant, except its pale crimson flowers, which are always partially faded at the extremity or unopened at the base, so that a perfect cluster cannot be found. The leaves are of a pale imperfect green on the upper surface and almost white beneath, and without any beauty. The uprightness of this plant, and the spiry form of its floral clusters, has gained it the name of “Steeplebush,” from our church-going ancestors.

THE HAWTHORN.

Few trees have received a greater tribute of praise from poets and poetical writers than the Hawthorn, which in England especially is consecrated to the pastoral muse and to all lovers of rural life. The Hawthorn is also a tree of classical celebrity. Its flowers and branches were used by the ancient Greeks at wedding festivities, and laid upon the altar of Hymen in the floral games of May, with which from the earliest times it has been associated. In England it is almost as celebrated as the rose, and constitutes the most admired hedge plant of that country. It is, indeed, the beauty of this shrub that forms the chief attraction of the English hedge-rows, which are not generally clipped, but allowed to run up and bear flowers. These are the principal beauties of the plant; for its leaves are neither luxuriant nor flowing.

The Hawthorn in this country is not associated with hedge-rows, which with us are only matters of pride and fancy, not of necessity, and their formal clipping causes them to resemble nature only as a wooden post resembles a tree. Our admiration of the Hawthorn, therefore, comes from a pleasant tradition derived from England, through the literature of that country, where it is known by the name of May-bush, from its connection with the floral festivities of May. The May-pole of the south of England is always garlanded with its flowers, as crosses are with holly at Christmas. The Hawthorn is well known in this country, though unassociated with any of our rural customs. Many of its species are indigenous in America, and surpass those of Europe in the beauty of their flowers and fruit. They are considered the most ornamental of the small trees in English gardens.

The flowers of the Hawthorn are mostly white, varying in different species through all the shades of pink, from a delicate blush-color to a pale crimson. The fruit varies from yellow to scarlet. The leaves are slightly cleft, like those of the oak and the holly. The flowers are produced in great abundance, and emit an agreeable odor, which is supposed by the peasants of Europe to be an antidote to poison.

SUMMER WOOD-SCENERY.

I have alluded to a beneficent law of Nature, that causes her to waste no displays of sublimity or beauty by making them either lasting or common. Before the light of morn is sufficient to make any objects distinctly visible, it displays a beauty of its own, beginning with a faint violet, and melting through a succession of hues into the splendor of meridian day. It remains through the day mere white transparent light, disclosing the infinite forms and colors of the landscape, being itself only the cause that renders everything visible. When at the decline of day it fades, just in the same ratio as substantial objects grow dim and undiscernible, this unsubstantial light once more becomes beautiful, painting itself in soft, tender, and glowing tints upon the clouds and the atmosphere. Similar phenomena attend both the opening and the decline of the year. Morning is the spring, with its pale and delicate tints that gradually change into the universal green that marks the landscape in summer, when the characterless brilliancy of noonday is represented on the face of the land. Autumn is emblemized by the departing tints of sunset; and thus the day and the year equally display the beneficence of Nature in the gradual approach and decline of the beauty and the splendor that distinguish them.

The flowering of the forest is the conclusion of the beautiful phenomena of spring, and summer cannot be said to begin until we witness the full expansion of its foliage. In the early part of the season each tree displays modifications of verdure peculiar, not only to the species, but to the individual and the situation, and hardly two trees in the wood are shaded alike. As the foliage ripens, the different shades of green become more thoroughly blended into one universal hue; and this uniformity, when perfected, distinguishes the true summer phase of vegetation. As summer advances, this monotony increases until near its close. The only trees that variegate the prospect are the evergreens, by their darker and more imperfect verdure, and one or two rare species, like the catalpa and ailantus, which display a lighter and more lively green, resembling the verdure of early summer.

It may be said, however, in behalf of summer, that no other season affords so good an opportunity to note the different effects of sun and shade in the foliage of the woods and fields. The leaves of the trees and grass are never so beautiful in their summer dress as they appear during the hour preceding sunset, when we view them with the sun shining obliquely toward us. All foliage is more or less transparent, and the rays of the sun, made slightly golden by the refraction of the atmosphere, communicate a brilliant yellow tinge to the leaves, as they shine through them. The same effects are not produced by reflection; for if we look away from the sun, the foliage and grass present a much less attractive appearance. A few hours after noonday, before the sunlight is yellowed by refraction, we may study these phenomena more minutely. When we look in the direction of the light, as I have just remarked, we see the least variety of light and shade; for as every leaf is an imperfect mirror, the surface of the forest presents a glitter that throws a glazed and whitish appearance over the green of the foliage. The whole is a mere glare, so that the landscape is almost without expression when viewed in this manner, and all the tiresome uniformity of summer verdure is aggravated. The only relief for the eye comes from the shadows of isolated trees and small forest groups as they are cast upon the ground.

Now let us turn our eyes in an opposite direction. To obtain the best view, we should look obliquely toward the sun. Then do we behold a magnificent blending of light and shade; for every mass of foliage has a dark shadow beneath it, forming a more appreciable contrast on account of the intense brilliancy, without glitter, caused by the illumination of every leaf by the sunlight shining through it. Under these circumstances we can once more distinguish species, to some extent, by their colors. We shall soon discover that trees which have a thin corrugated leaf, without gloss, make the most brilliant spectacle when viewed in this manner. Nothing can surpass the foliage of the elm, the lime, the maple, and the birch in this peculiar splendor. But trees like the poplar, the tulip-tree, the oak, and the willow, having a leaf of a firmer texture and less diaphanous, look comparatively dull under the same circumstances.

I would repeat that the true summer phase of wood-scenery is that which succeeds the flowering of the forest, when all the different greens have faded into one dark shade of verdure. There is no longer that marked and beautiful variety which is displayed before the maturity of the leaves. Summer is not, therefore, the painter’s season. It is dull and tame compared even with winter, when regarded as a subject for the brush or the pencil, and especially when compared with spring and autumn. Summer is the time for the observations of the botanist, not for those of the picturesque rambler; for beneath this sylvan mass of monotonous verdure the sods are covered with an endless variety of herbs and flowers, surpassing in beauty those of any other season.

CATKIN OF OAK.

OAK LEAVES.

THE OAK.

If the willow be the most poetical of trees, the Oak is certainly the most useful; though, indeed, it is far from being unattended with poetic interest, since the ancient superstitions associated with it have given it an important place in legendary lore. It is not surprising, when we remember the numerous benefits conferred on mankind by the Oak, that this tree has always been regarded with veneration, that the ancients held it sacred to Jupiter, and that divine honors were paid to it by our Celtic ancestors. The Romans, who crowned their heroes with green Oak leaves, entitled the “Civic Crown,” and the Druids, who offered sacrifice under this tree, were actuated by the same estimation of its pre-eminent utility to the human race. When we consider the sturdy form of the Oak, the wide spread of its lower branches, that symbolize protection; the value of its fruit for the sustenance of certain animals; and the many purposes to which the bark, the wood, and even the excrescences of this tree may be applied,—we can easily understand why it is called the emblem of hospitality. The ancient Romans planted it to overshadow the temple of Jupiter; and in the adjoining grove of oaks,—the sacred grove of Dodona,—they sought those oracular responses which were prophetic of the result of any important adventure.

To American eyes, the Oak is far less familiar than the elm as a wayside tree; but in England, where many

“... a cottage chimney smokes

From betwixt two aged oaks,”

this tree, formerly associated with the principal religious ceremonies of that country, is now hardly less sacred in the eyes of the inhabitants from their experience of its shelter and its shade, and their ideas of its usefulness in all the arts. The history of the British Isles is closely interwoven with incidents connected with it, and the poetry of Great Britain has derived from it many a theme of inspiration.

The Oak surpasses all other trees, not only in actual strength, but also in that outward appearance by which this quality is manifested. This expression is owing to the general horizontal tendency of its principal boughs, the great angularity of the unions of its smaller branches, the want of flexibility in its spray, and its great size compared with its height, all manifesting power to resist the wind and the storm. Hence it is called the monarch of trees, surpassing all in the qualities of nobleness and capacity. It is the embodiment of strength, dignity, and grandeur. The severest hurricane cannot overthrow it, and, by destroying some of its principal branches, leaves it only with more wonderful proof of its resistance. Like a rock in mid-ocean, it becomes in old age a just symbol of fortitude, parting with its limbs one by one, as they are withered by decay or broken by the gale, but still retaining its many-centuried existence, when, like an old patriarch, it has seen all its early companions removed.

A remarkable habit of the Oak is that of putting forth its lower branches at a wide angle from the central shaft, which rapidly diminishes in size, but does not entirely disappear above the lower junction. No other tree displays more irregularities in its ramification. The beauty of its spray depends on a certain crinkling of the small branches; yet the Oak, which, on account of these angularities, is especially adapted to rude situations, is equally attractive in an open cultivated plain. It forms a singularly noble and majestic standard; and though surpassed by the elm in grace, beauty, and variety of form, an Oak of full size and just proportions would attract more admiration.

The foliage of the Oak may be readily distinguished at all seasons. It comes out in spring in neatly plaited folds, displaying a variety of hues, combined with a general cinereous tint. Hence it is very beautiful when only half developed, having a silvery lustre, intershaded with purple, crimson, and lilac. The leaves, when fully expanded in all the typical oaks, are deeply scalloped in a way which is peculiar to this genus of trees; their verdure is of more than ordinary purity; they are of a firm texture, and glossy upon their upper surface, like evergreen leaves. In midsummer few forest trees surpass the Oak in the beauty of their foliage, or in its persistence after the arrival of frost.

Oak woods possess characters almost as strongly marked as those of a pine wood. They emit a fragrance which is agreeable, though not sweet, and unlike that of other trees. They seldom grow as densely as pines, poplars, and other trees that scatter a multitude of small seeds, and, being soft-wooded, increase with greater rapidity. The Oak is slow in its perpendicular growth, having an obstinate inclination to spread. It has also a more abundant undergrowth than many other woods, because it sends its roots downward into the soil, instead of monopolizing the surface, like the beech. One thing that is apparent on entering an Oak wood is the absence of that uniformity which we observe in other woods. The irregular and contorted growth of individual trees, twisting in many directions, and the want of precision in their forms, are apparent at once. We do not see in a forest of Oaks whole acres of tall slender trees sending upward a smooth perpendicular shaft, as we observe in a wood of beech and poplar. Every tree has more or less of a gnarled growth, and is seldom entirely clear of branches. If the branch of an Oak in a dense assemblage meets an obstruction, it bends itself around and upward until it obtains light and space, or else ceases to grow without decaying, while that of any soft-wooded tree would perish, leaving the trunk smooth, or but slightly defaced.

TREES IN ASSEMBLAGES.

Open groves, fragments of forest, and inferior groups alone are particularly interesting in landscape. An extensive and unbroken wilderness of wood affords but a dreary prospect and an unattractive journey. Its gloomy uniformity tires and saddens the spectator, after some hours’ confinement to it. The primitive state of any densely wooded continent, unmodified by the operations of civilized man, is sadly wanting in those cheerful scenes which are now so common in New England. Nature must be combined with art, or rather with the works of man’s labor, and associated with human life, to be deeply interesting. It is not necessary, however, that the artificial objects in a landscape should possess a grand historical character to awaken our sympathies. Humble objects, indeed, are the most consonant with nature’s aspects, because they manifest no ludicrous endeavor to rival them. A woodman’s hut in a clearing, a farmer’s cottage on some half-cultivated slope, a saw-mill, or even a mere sheepfold, awakens a sympathetic interest, and enlivens the scene with pastoral and romantic images.