Chapter X: Preface (3)

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 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 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.

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.

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.