Chapter XV: Preface (8)

The Red Birch is a rare species, and but very little known. By careless observers it might be mistaken for a white birch, the redness of its bark seeming only a departure from its usual type. The only trees of this species I have seen in Massachusetts were in Andover, in a swamp through which the Shawsheen River flows. If you would behold this tree to the best advantage, you must follow the streams that glide along the level woodlands which are inundated a part of the year. There it may be seen, like some pilgrim bending worshipfully over the stream, by whose beneficent waters it is sustained in beauty and health. Its picturesque attractions, arising from the great variety of its outlines and the peculiar wreathing of its foliage around the stem, are not surpassed by those of the willow, that delights in similar places. The reddish whiteness of the bark and wood has given the name to this tree. It is a tall, bushy tree of rapid growth, rolling up its bark in coarse ringlets, which are whitish with a stain of crimson.

THE INDIAN SUMMER.

When November arrives, leading along with it the short days and the darkness of winter, it opens the windows of the deep woods, pervaded all summer by a sort of artificial twilight. The general denuded state of the forest admits the sunshine into its interior, and brightens it with a cheerfulness exceeding that of any other season. Some light-tinted leaves still remain upon the trees which have been screened by their situation from the frost and the wind, and many an interesting object is exposed to view which was concealed by the foliage in summer. A few asters and gentians still linger in some protected nook, and the chickadees and hemp-birds make the wood lively by their garrulity and their motions. The ground is covered with red, brown, and yellow leaves, making a pleasant carpet for our feet, and increasing all the pleasures of a woodland ramble.

After the fall of the leaf is completed, then, according to tradition, comes the Indian Summer,—a fruitful theme both for poets and philosophical writers, but of which no one knows anything from experience. It may, after all, be only a myth, like the halcyon days of the ancients, the offspring of a tradition that originated with certain customs of the Indian, and which occasional days of fine weather in the autumn have served to perpetuate. It is certain that we have now in the Eastern States no regular coming of this delightful term of mildness and serenity, this smiling interruption of the melancholy days of autumn. We are greeted occasionally by two or three days resembling it after the first cool weather of October, and these short visits are in some years repeated several times. But a true Indian Summer, attended with all the peculiar phenomena described by some of our early writers both in prose and verse, rarely accompanies a modern autumn. It has fled from our land before the progress of civilization; it has departed with the primitive forest. I will, however, for the present, set aside all my conjectures of its mythical character, and treat it as a matter of fact.

The Indian Summer, if such a season was ever known, was a phenomenon produced by some unexplained circumstances attending the universal wooded state of the country that existed for many years after its settlement. According to the most apparently authentic accounts, it did not arrive until November, nor until a series of hard frosts had destroyed all the leaves of the forest. It then appeared regularly every year. At the present time people know so little about it that they cannot name the period of the autumn when, if it were not a thing of the past, it should be expected. Will the disappearance of this phenomenon admit of a philosophic explanation? Let us consider some of its probable causes, and the effects of the changes which have taken place in our land.

It has been observed that a meadow covered with luxuriant grass and other herbage cools the atmosphere that rests upon it much more rapidly than a similar meadow covered with a scanty herbage. The moisture exhaled into the air by vegetable perspiration is greater than from any other natural surface; and as the radiation of heat is rapid in proportion to the moist condition of the atmosphere, the cooling process over a grassy meadow is vastly greater than over a similar ground bare of vegetation. A wood, in like manner, by exhaling through its foliage the moisture it draws from the earth, cools the atmosphere in proportion to the amount of its foliage, while at the same time it shades the ground from the sun. Anything that should check this vegetable perspiration would in the same ratio preserve the heat of the atmosphere by diminishing the radiation of heat that takes place more slowly in dry than in moist air.

This is precisely what happens soon after the first severe frosts of November, when the whole extent of the forest over thousands of miles is laid bare in the brief space of two or three days. There is a sudden and universal diminution of the moisture that was given out from the leaves of trees and other plants before the frost had destroyed them; for the evaporation caused by the drying of fallen leaves and herbage is comparatively slight, and ceases after a few hours’ exposure to the sun. The atmosphere being dry, and the radiation of heat proportionally small in quantity, all these circumstances, if no unusual atmospheric disturbances occur from any other hidden cause, unite in producing a sudden and universal accumulation of heat. The warm period that follows is the Indian Summer.

A writer in “Silliman’s Journal” of 1833, who advances a very different theory to explain this phenomenon, makes a statement that favors my view: “It appears to us that the existence and duration of the Indian Summer in this country has an important connection with the extensive forests and uncultivated lands peculiar to America. And it is worthy of remark, that, according to the recollection of the oldest of our inhabitants, its former duration was often three or four weeks; whereas its present continuance is short and uncertain, seldom exceeding ten or fifteen days. It appears also that this decline has been somewhat regular, keeping pace with, and evidently influenced by, the gradual uncovering of the country.”

It is surprising that the writer, after making these observations, should resort to some unintelligible reasoning about the trade-winds, and certain assumed electric phenomena, to account for the Indian Summer. I can easily believe that before the encroachments upon the American forest were very extensive, this halcyon period of autumn may have occurred every year with great regularity. But since the clearing is almost universal, these conditions have been entirely changed. During the primitive state of the forest, its sudden denudation produced a more complete revolution on the face of the country than could possibly happen at the present time. The clearing of the woods has also cast down the barriers that impeded the circulation of the winds; at present these winds, sweeping freely over the continent, would counteract any influences, whatever they might be, that would produce an Indian Summer in any locality.

The true Indian Summer was a period of very mild weather, lasting from ten to fifteen days, and accompanied neither by wind nor rain. It has been incorrectly described by certain writers as attended with fog. The sky, though somewhat dim, was not obscured by vapor, but by a sort of ruddy haze, that veiled the prospect, as it often will during a series of warm, still days happening at any season. I draw my inferences from what I have reason to consider the most authentic accounts. The air was dry; and it could not have been otherwise. If it were moist, the increased radiation would soon dissipate the heat and put an end to the Indian Summer, which was never known to survive a copious and extensive fall of rain. The atmosphere was described as being obscured by smoke, rather than vapor, and this was most apparent in the latter part of the day. This smoky atmosphere has led some writers to suppose the whole phenomenon to be caused by fires in the woods.

According to tradition, no part of the year was more delightful than this short period. Those accounts, however, that extended its duration beyond the space of fourteen or fifteen days were undoubtedly exaggerated. The nearest approaches to an Indian Summer which I have witnessed in its proper season have never lasted a week. In our day, when a warm week occurs in the autumn, it comes at no regular or expected time. This irregularity of its occurrence proves that it is not to be identified as the Indian Summer, which was regular in its happening immediately after the entire denudation of the forest. Similar but shorter periods of mild and serene weather may happen, at the present epoch, in winter and spring as well as in autumn. These irregularities of the weather cannot be explained; nor can we make predictions of the time when any of them may happen. But a warm period in October or December or January is not an Indian Summer, which belonged to November, and is only a relic of the past.

The origin of the name is explained by Dr. Lyman Foot, in the third volume of “Silliman’s Journal.” He says: “If you ask an Indian in the fall when he is going to his hunting-ground, he will tell you when the fall summer comes, or when the Great Spirit sends our fall summer; meaning the time in November which we call the Indian Summer. And the Indians actually believe that the Great Spirit sends this mild season in November for their special benefit.”

THE POPLAR.

In the latter part of April, some of the most conspicuous groups in many of the wooded districts of Northern New England are Poplar woods, full of olivegreen aments, and giving the hue of their blossoms and of their pale green spray to large portions of the forest in scattered assemblages. At this period the poplars are an important ingredient in our wood-scenery, especially as their colors vary considerably from those of other trees until all kinds are in full foliage. They have the merit also of preceding a greater part of the forest in the development of their flowers. The aments of a few species are variegated with red and purple stamens; but the generality do not vary from a pure olive. The Poplar has not many of the qualities of a beautiful or picturesque tree. It is marked by a coarse and straggling spray, without any variety in its combination. It is deficient in beauty and density of foliage, which is chiefly remarkable for its fragrance and tremulous habit.

All the poplars are rapid in their growth, and will prosper in almost all situations. They prefer a moist, sandy soil, but shun the peat meadow. Their rapidity of growth renders them valuable where a speedy plantation is wanted. Hence they are very generally planted by the sides of dusty thoroughfares, not being dainty in their choice of soil and situation. The species generally employed for such purposes is the Abele, or Silver Poplar, which possesses these requisite properties in a higher degree than our native trees. It displays also more beauty of foliage, and takes a rounder and handsomer shape than most others. One of the defects which I have frequently observed in the shape of the large poplars is a leaning of the branches rather awkwardly toward the south-east, caused by the prevalent north-west winds acting upon branches of great proportional length, and possessing very little elasticity. This inclination is observed more or less in other soft-wooded deciduous trees.

THE CANADA POPLAR.

The Canada or Balm of Gilead Poplar is more frequent by our waysides than any other species. It is a tree of the first magnitude, attaining a great size in the bole as well as a superior height. It is distinguished by its large leaves, of a bright glossy verdure, and its long branches, always subordinate to the central shaft, which may be traced nearly to the summit of the tree. Before the leaves begin to expand, the buds are covered with a yellow glutinous balsam, that diffuses a peculiar and very penetrating but agreeable odor, unlike any other. Sir John Franklin remarks that this tree constitutes “the greatest part of the drift timber observed on the shores of the Arctic Sea.” It has a very wide geographical range, extending from Canada to the Missouri River, and is in many places called the Ontario Poplar. It is abundant in the northern woods, but is found in the southern parts of New England only by the roadsides and in the enclosures of dwelling-houses. The balsam is gathered in all parts of the country as a healing anodyne, and for many ailments it is a favorite remedy in domestic medicine; but no place has yet been assigned to it in the pharmacopœias. All the poplars produce more or less of this substance. It is very different from turpentine, more agreeable when perceived in the air, but pungent and disagreeable to the taste.

THE BLACK POPLAR.

There are several of the poplars that are not easily distinguished, and the different and various accounts of them by botanists have increased this confusion. Part of the difficulty arises from the diœcious character of the poplar, causing in some instances the male and female trees to be mistaken for different species. This is particularly remarkable in the Balm of Gilead poplar. The female tree is smaller than the male, with larger leaves, and annoys us by the abundance of cottony down that covers the ground for a considerable space around it. The male tree is taller and more spreading, and would hardly be recognized as the same species.

The Black Poplar is often planted by roadsides with the Canada poplar, and may be distinguished from it by the greater elegance of its proportions, its smaller foliage, and, when in flower, by its reddish and purple catkins. It is preferred to other species on account of an inferior tendency to that suckering habit which is so disagreeable in the poplar tribe. It seems to me that no persons who should see the Canada poplar and the Black Poplar growing side by side, would hesitate in giving preference to the latter, which is in almost every point a more beautiful tree.

This species is called in Europe the Athenian Poplar. According to Selby, “the classic appellation of Athenian Poplar led to the supposition in England that this species is indigenous to Greece, and that it derived its name from the city of Minerva. Several learned botanists were misled by this name; but it was finally ascertained that North America is its native country, and from its abundance in a particular township called Athens it received the imposing title of Athenian Poplar.”

THE RIVER POPLAR.

The River Poplar is not rare in the New England forest, but it is little known as an ornamental tree. Emerson says: “It is much the tallest and most graceful of those which grow naturally in New England. Its foliage is equal to that of the Balm of Gilead in size, and superior to it in depth of color; and the abundance of its aments in the spring, and the rich colors of its leaf-stalks and young branches, when growing in somewhat dry situations, make it a beautiful object.” The aments of this tree are not olive-colored, like those of the two aspens, but inclining to red, though not so bright as those of the black and Lombardy poplars. It is very justly called the River Poplar, being found chiefly in wet places, near brooksides, on the banks of rivers, and in alluvial valleys which are liable to be inundated in spring. This tree displays the characteristic peculiarities of the family in giving out its lateral branches at a sharp angle and subordinate to the trunk.

SOUNDS FROM TREES.

“The earliest chant,” says Momsen, “in the view of the Romans, was that which the trees sang to themselves, in the green solitudes of the forest. The whisperings and pipings of the _favorable spirit_ in the grove were repeated by the singer, with the accompaniment of the pipe.” Certain trees belonging to the sacred groves gave oracular sounds, which were interpreted by musicians, and received by all men with faith and reverence. From the earliest ages men have listened to sounds from trees as music and as the voice of some deity, affording auguries of future events; for, as they reasoned, if a deity speaks to us, what sounds would be a more appropriate medium of communication than those of the trees which formed their temples and their altars? The sanctity attributed to certain groves by the ancients was probably owing to some peculiar sounds emitted by the trees, no less than to the grandeur and impressiveness of their assemblages.

Every tree, when swept by the winds, gives a sound in harmony with the character of its leaves and spray. The sounds from the lofty branches of firs and pines remind the listener of the murmuring of waters, and inspire the most agreeable sensations. How often have I sat under the shade of a pine wood, and listened to the fancied roaring of the distant waves of the sea, as the winds passed through their foliage. When the breeze commences, we hear the first soft rippling of the waves; as it increases, succeeding waves of fuller swell flow tremulously upon the strand, and as the wind subsides melt into silence as they recede from the shore. Other trees produce very different sounds. The colors of their leaves, and the glittering lights from their more or less refractive surfaces, do not differ more than the modifications of sound drawn from them by the passing winds. Every tree is a delicate musical instrument, that reminds us of the character of the tree and the season of the year, from the mellow soothing tones of willow leaves in summer to the sharp rustling of the dry oak-leaf that tells of the arrival of winter.

The sounds from trees are a very important part of the music of nature; but their agreeableness comes rather from certain emotions they awaken than from the melody of their tones. Nature has accommodated her gifts to our wants and sensibilities, so that her beneficence is never so apparent as in the pleasures we derive from the most common objects. If we are afflicted with grief or wearied with care, we flee to the groves to be soothed by the quiet of their solitudes, and by the sounds from their boughs which are tuned to every healthful mood of the mind. Among the thousand strings that are swept by the winds, there is always a chord in unison with our feelings; and while each strain comes to the ear with its accordant vibration, the mind is healed of its disquietude by sounds that seem like direct messages of peace from the guardian deities of the wood.

We find in the works of Ossian frequent allusions to the sounds from trees, to heighten the effect of his descriptions. As the “Spirit of the Mountain,” he addresses the wind that bends the oaks, and gives out that deep melancholy sound that precedes a storm, “when Temora’s woods shake with the blast of the inconstant winds.” He speaks of the “sons of song” as having gone to rest, while his own voice remains, like the feeble sounds of the forest, when the winds are laid. When the aged oak of Morven bends over the stream, its sounds are mournful, like those of a harp when swept by the wind. According to Ossian, it is the oak that blends its music with the sounds of lamentation, and sings the dirges of departed heroes. And the bard declares that he will cease to mourn for them only when the music of the oak shall no longer be heard in the groves of echoing Cona.

When a strong wind prevails, the leaves of all trees are put in motion, and their sounds cannot be distinguished; and during a storm the roar of winds among their branches is almost deafening. This is the grand chorus of the elements; but the sounds that affect us most agreeably are such as come from light movements of the wind and harmonize with the warbling and chirping of birds. It is the aspen that gives out those lulling melodies that spring from the gentle gales of summer. When we are sitting at an open window on a still evening, or sauntering in a wood, or musing in the shade of a quiet nook, when the wind is so calm that the hum of the invisible insect-swarms, hovering in the air, is plainly audible, then is the trembling motion of the aspen leaves peculiarly significant of the serenity of the elements. They produce a tranquillizing sound, associated with rest in the languor of noonday, or with watching in the still hours of a summer night.

When the quiet of the atmosphere begins to yield to the movements of a rising tempest, the aspen, by its excessive agitation, gives prophetic warning of its approach. Often, in a sultry evening, the first notice I have received of a rising thunder-storm came from the increased trepidation of an aspen that stood before my window. So delicate and sensitive is the foliage of this tree that it is excited to action by atmospheric changes before that of any other tree is moved. Thus, while the rustling of the aspen leaf, when gentle, indicates the tranquillity of summer weather, there is likewise an expression of melancholy in its tones when more severely agitated, that forebodes a general stirring of the winds as they come up from the gathering-place of the storm.

I have spoken only of those sounds from trees which are caused by the action of the winds upon their leaves and branches. But there are incidental sounds belonging to the woods, which are modified so as to produce feelings awakened by no other situation. It is in the deep stillness of the forest, and over spacious and uninhabited plains, that we feel most sensibly the peculiar effect of bells, whether it be the solemn peal of a bell from a church tower or the tinkle of a cow-bell that reminds us of simple rural life. The ordinary toll of bells is much more impressive than a chime in these solitudes, because the artificial melody of the chime does not so agreeably harmonize with natural sounds.

In winter the sounds from trees, except in a pine wood, are greatly modified by the absence of foliage. It is at this season, therefore, that we pay the most attention to incidental sounds. When the snow upon the ground has been hardened by repeated freezing and thawing, I have often chosen this occasion for winter rambling in the woods. The loneliness inspired by their seclusion is never so keenly felt as at this season, when there are but few sounds from birds and insects. Then does the stroke of the woodman’s axe affect us with the most cheerful emotions. It reminds us of the presence of other human beings in the wood, and enlivens the solitude, as the sight of a little cottage in a wilderness affords the traveller a sensation of the joys of home.

THE LOMBARDY POPLAR.

There are not many trees that take the shape of a long spire; but Nature, who presents to our eyes an ever-charming variety of forms as well as colors, has given us this figure in the arbor-vitæ, the juniper, and the Lombardy Poplar. This was the species which was cultivated by the Romans, the classic Poplar of Rome and Athens. To this tree Ovid alludes when he describes the resinous drops from the Poplar as the tears of Phæton’s sisters, who were transformed into poplars. Smith says: “Groves of poplar and willow exhibit this phenomenon, even in England, in hot calm weather, when drops of clear water trickle from their leaves like a slight shower of rain.”

The Lombardy Poplar is interesting to thousands in this country, who were familiar with it in their youth as an ornament of roadsides, village lanes, and avenues. It was once a favorite shade-tree, and still retains its privileges in some ancient homesteads. A century ago, great numbers of Lombardy Poplars were planted by village waysides, in front of dwelling-houses, on the borders of public grounds, and particularly in avenues leading to houses that stand at some distance from the high road. A row of these trees is even now suggestive of an approach to some old mansion, that still retains its primitive simplicity.

Great numbers of Lombardy Poplars were destroyed at the beginning of this century, from the notion that they generated a poisonous worm or caterpillar. But some of these ancient rows of poplars are occasionally seen in old fields where almost all traces of the habitation they accompanied are gone. There is a melancholy pleasure in surveying these humble ruins, whose history would illustrate many of the domestic habits of our ancestors. The cellar of the old house is now a part of the pasture land; and its form may be dimly traced by an angular depression of the surface. Sumachs and cornel-bushes have supplanted the exotic shrubbery in the old garden; and the only ancient companions of the Poplar now remaining are a few straggling lilacs, some tufts of houseleek, and perhaps, under the shade of a dilapidated fence, the white Star of Bethlehem is seen meekly glowing in the rude society of the wild flowers.

But the Lombardy Poplar, once a favorite wayside ornament, a sort of idol of the public, and, like many another idol, exalted to honors beyond its merits, fell suddenly into contempt and neglect. After having been admired by every eye, it was spurned and ridiculed, and cut down in many places as a cumberer of the ground. The faults attributed to it were not specific defects of the tree, but were caused by a climate uncongenial to its nature. It was brought from the sunny clime of Italy, where it had flourished by the side of the orange and myrtle, and transplanted to the snowy plains of New England. The tender habit of the tree made it incapable of enduring our winters; and every spring witnessed the decay of many of its small branches. It became prematurely aged, and in its decline carried with it the marks of its infirmities.

With all these imperfections, it was more worthy of the honors it received from our predecessors than of its present neglect. It is one of the fairest of trees in the greenness of its youth, far surpassing any other poplar in its shape and in the density and general beauty of its foliage; but nearly all these old trees are gone, and few of the same species are coming up to supply their places. While I am writing, I see from my window the graceful spire of one solitary tree, towering above the surrounding objects of the landscape. It stands there, the symbol of decayed reputation; in its old age still retaining the primness of its youth, neither drooping under its infirmities nor losing in its decrepitude the fine lustre of its foliage. In its disgrace, it still bears itself proudly, as if conscious that its former honors were deserved, and not forgetting the dignity that becomes one who has fallen without dishonor.

There is no other tree that so pleasantly adorns the sides of narrow lanes and avenues, or so neatly accommodates itself to limited enclosures. Its foliage is dense and of the liveliest verdure, making delicate music to the soft touch of every breeze. Its terebinthine odors scent the vernal gales that enter our open windows with the morning sun. Its branches, always turning upwards and closely gathered together, afford a harbor to the singing birds, that make them a favorite resort; and its long, tapering spire, that points to heaven, gives an air of cheerfulness and religious tranquillity to village scenery.

THE ASPEN.

All lovers of nature admire the Aspen on account of its name, which, like that of the willow, is poetical, both from its musical sound and from association. There is no tree more celebrated in emblematical literature than the Aspen. Its sensitiveness to the least movement of the wind, its restless motions, as if some morbid occasion of disquiet unceasingly attended it, have given it a place in the poetry of all nations. But setting aside its symbolical meanings, its suggestions of fickleness and caprice, of levity and irresolution, of impatience and instability, and the use that has been made of it in satirical writings to symbolize the “inconstant temper of woman,” the beauty and motion of its foliage alone would always attract admiration. As the Aspen is the only tree whose leaf trembles when the wind is apparently calm, its gentle rustling is always associated with still summer weather.

THE GREAT AMERICAN ASPEN.

The Great American Aspen is a remarkable tree. In height it is unsurpassed by any of the poplars, though there is little about it that is attractive except its great height and its peculiar foliage. It is seldom of large dimensions, and it is without symmetry or elegance in its ramification. Its branches seem to have a straggling growth, not extending so widely, nor at so acute an angle, as those of the poplar. Its foliage is its principal ornament. This would be very dense if it were not for the scarcity of small branches, which are so far apart as to give the tree a meagre appearance, even when full of leaves. The leaf is beautiful, being round ovate, deeply serrate, and put in motion by the slightest breeze. As a standard the Great Aspen is not highly prized. It is easily broken by the wind, and is without symmetry,—a necessary quality in a tree of the poplar tribe, which possesses none of the properties of grandeur. But when the trees of this species form a dense wood, they are unsurpassed in the beauty of their perfectly straight shafts, with their smooth, greenish bark extending upward to an immense height without a branch. The Great Aspen is very common in the woods of Maine and New Hampshire, where the second growth of timber predominates.

The specific name of this tree, _grandidentata_, always affected me ludicrously, when I considered that it was applied to it merely from the deep indentations on the edge of its serrate leaves. _Excelsa_ would be a more appropriate name for the species, on account of its superior height.

THE SMALL AMERICAN ASPEN.

This tree resembles the great aspen in almost every particular except size. It is a very common tree in our woods, but is so little esteemed that it has received no protection and is seldom planted by our roadsides. It is found chiefly in copses on the sides of some gravelly bank, growing almost alone, with a few cherry-trees and white birches, and an undergrowth of brambles and whortleberry-bushes. It is often abundant on little dry elevations that rise above an oak wood standing on a clay level. It is remarkable for its slenderness of habit and the smoothness of its pale-green bark, which becomes whitish and rough as the tree grows old. Its principal defect is the thinness of its foliage and spray; its small branches are few and far apart, and its leaves small and sparse. Yet the beauty of each individual leaf is unrivalled. It is heart-shaped, finely serrate, and when young is fringed with a soft, silky, and purple down. It would be difficult to select a branch from any other tree, when in leaf, so beautiful as a spray of the Small Aspen.

I do not understand the botanical difference between the Aspen and the poplar, except that the former includes certain species that possess in an exaggerated degree the family characteristic of a tremulous leaf. The Aspen, however, is the proverbial tree, the tree of romance and fable. Hence we regard it with more interest, though in America the two aspens fall short of the poplars in almost every point of elegance and beauty.

RELATIONS OF TREES TO POETRY AND FABLE.

From the earliest period of history, mankind have looked upon trees and woods with veneration, regarding them as special gifts of the gods to the human race. The ancient priests and philosophers used them as their places of retirement, both for the study of wisdom and the services of religion. Hence arose that early custom of planting trees in circles, forming a kind of amphitheatre, for religious assemblies. The teachers of philosophy used the same circular groves. These were held in the greatest reverence; and no man dared to commit the sacrilegious act of cutting down any part of them or defacing any of the trees. By means of these circular groves, wise and holy men obtained that seclusion and quiet which it was not easy to find in towns and cities. They were both schools and chapels, devoted to religion and philosophy. Hence the often-quoted remark of Pliny that “the groves were the first temples of the gods.”

It is not improbable that many of the ancient superstitions relating to trees and groves originated with wise men, who believed that such holy fears alone would restrain the people from devastating the whole earth by the destruction of trees. Science now supplies mankind with rational motives for their preservation, in place of the religious scruples of ancient communities. I am inclined to believe that many a rational principle has been advocated by wise men under the guise of theology. The druidical priesthood foresaw that the oak, from the superior value of its timber, could not be saved from the woodman’s axe except by certain ceremonies on their part that should render it sacred in the eyes of the people. To impress this idea of its sanctity upon their minds, they made use of its leaves and branches to consecrate all important private or public transactions.

In still more ancient times, the priests adopted the expedient of dedicating to some one of the gods, particularly to Jupiter, certain woods and groves, which were thenceforth held in veneration by all men, including even invading armies, whose chiefs, while respecting neither the lives nor the property of the enemy, held these consecrated groves sacred and inviolable. Hunting was forbidden within them by this superstition, and its injunctions were in all cases religiously observed. It is even asserted that the wild animals in these sacred groves had become so tame, from the permanent security they enjoyed, that they did not flee from the presence of man.

Many persons formerly believed that trees felt the stroke of the woodman’s axe, which disturbed the repose of some resident spirit. The ancient Greeks supposed certain trees to be inhabited by wood-nymphs, and that these deities uttered groans when the axe was laid upon the tree. These sounds gave origin to the sacred oracle of Dodona. There were two kinds of nymphs supposed to inhabit trees,—an inferior class that lived during the life of the tree, and died when it perished; and a superior class, like the dryads, who could pass at will from one tree to another. “One might fill a volume,” says Evelyn, “with the history of groves that were violated by wicked men who came to untimely ends; especially those upon which the mistletoe grew, than which nothing was reputed more sacred.”

The custom of planting a tree at the birth of a child has prevailed among certain nations from the earliest times, and is still observed in some parts of Europe. Connected with this custom was the idea that the fate of the child was mysteriously associated with that of the natal tree, which created the strongest motives, arising from parental affection, to preserve the tree, and on the part of the child to protect it when he attained his manhood. Nothing is more evident than the beneficial tendency of all these superstitions, at an early age of the world, when men were not wise enough to be governed by the principles of reason and science.

The ancients placed the Naiad and her fountain in the shady arbor of trees, whose foliage gathers the waters of heaven into her fount and preserves them from dissipation. From their dripping shades she distributed the waters which she garnered from the skies over the plain and the valley; and the husbandman, before he learned the marvels of science, worshipped the beneficent Naiad, who drew the waters of her fountain from heaven, and from her sanctuary in the forest showered them upon the arid glebe, and gave new verdure to the plain. After science had explained to us the law by which these supplies of moisture are preserved by the trees, the Naiad still remained a sacred theme of poetry. We would not remove the drapery of foliage that protects her fountain, nor drive her into exile by the destruction of the trees, through which she holds mysterious commerce with the skies, and preserves our fields from drought.

Evelyn says: “Innumerable are the testimonies I might produce concerning the inspiring and sacred influence of groves from the ancient poets and historians. Here the noblest raptures have been conceived; and in the walks and shades of trees poets have composed verses which have animated men to glorious and heroic actions. Here orators have made their panegyrics, historians their grave relations; and here profound philosophers have loved to pass their lives in repose and contemplation.”

As man is nomadic before he is agricultural, and a maker of tents and wigwams before he is a builder of houses and temples, in like manner he is an architect and an idolater before he becomes a student of wisdom. He is a sacrificer in temples and a priest at their altars before he is a teacher of philosophy and an interpreter of nature. After the perfection of mechanical science, a higher state of mental culture succeeds, causing us to see all nature invested with beauty, and fraught with imaginative charms, adding new wonders to our views of creation and new dignity to life. Man learns now to regard trees in other relations beside their capacity to supply his physical and mechanical wants. He looks upon them as the principal ornaments of the landscape, and as the conservatories in which nature preserves certain plants and small animals and birds that will thrive only under their protection, and those insect hosts that charm the student with their beauty and excite his wonder by their mysterious instincts. Science has built an altar under the trees, and delivers thence new oracles of wisdom, teaching men how they are mysteriously wedded to the clouds, and are the instruments of their beneficence to the earth.

It is difficult to estimate how great a part of all that is cheerful and delightful in the recollections of our life is associated with trees. They are allied with the songs of morn, with the quiet of noonday, with social gatherings under the evening sky, and with the beauty and attractiveness of every season. Nowhere does nature look more lovely, or the sounds from birds and insects affect us more deeply, than under their benevolent shade. Never does the blue sky look more serene than when its dappled azure glimmers through their green trembling leaves. Their recesses, which in the early ages were the temples of religion and science, are still the favorite resorts of the studious, the scenes of sport for the active and adventurous, and the very sanctuary of peaceful seclusion for the contemplative and sorrowful.

In our early years we are charmed with the solitude of groves, with the flowers that dwell in their nooks, with the living creatures that sport among their branches, and with the birds that convey to us by their notes a share of their own indefinable happiness. Nature has made use of trees to wed our minds to the love of homely scenes, and to make us satisfied with life. How many recollections of village merry-makings, of rural sports and pastimes, of the frolics of children and of studious recreation, come to us when we sit down under some old familiar tree that stands in the open field or by the wayside! Trees are among the most poetic objects of creation. Every wood teems with legends of mythology and romance; every tree is vocal with music; and their flowers and fruits do not afford more luxury to the sense than delight to the mind. Trees have their roots in the ground; but they send up their branches toward the skies, and are so many supplicants to Heaven for blessings on the earth.

In whatever light we regard trees, they deserve attention as the fairest ornaments of nature; and the more we study them, the more do we think upon the dangers that await them from the improvidence of man. He takes but a narrow view of their importance who considers only their economical value. The painter has always made them a particular branch of his study; and the poet understands their advantages in increasing the effect of his descriptions, and considers them the blessed gifts of nature to render the earth a beautiful abode and sanctify it to our affections.

THE ALDER.

All persons, however ignorant of trees in general, are familiar with the common Alder. It abounds everywhere in wet places, skirting the banks of small rivers, bordering the sides of old turnpike roads, where they pass over wet grounds, filling up the basins of muddy canals, and covering with its monotonous green foliage many an unsightly tract of land, hiding and then revealing the glittering surface of sluggish stream and lonely mere. The Alder is a homely shrub, employed by Nature merely for the groundwork of her living pictures, for covering stagnant fens with verdure in company with the water-flag and the bog-rush, and as a border growth to the fenny forest, graduating its foliage by a pleasing slope down to the verdure of the plain. The assemblages of Alder constitute the plain embroidery of watercourses, and form the ground upon which many a beautiful flowering shrub is represented and rendered more interesting.

The Alder among shrubs takes the place which the grasses occupy among herbs; having no beauty of its own, but contributing to set off to advantage the beauty of other plants that flourish in the same ground. Nature likewise employs the roots of this tree as a subterranean network, to strengthen the banks of streams and defend them from the force of torrents. The Alder in New England is seldom large enough to be called a tree; it rarely stands alone, but almost invariably in clumps or larger assemblages, the different individuals of the collection forming each a single stem, almost without branches, making an outward curve a few feet from the ground, and bending inwards toward their summit.

The foliage of the Alder is homely, but not meagre, and its color is of a very agreeable tone. It is indeed a very important feature of the landscape in summer; but in autumn it remains unaffected by the general tinting of the season, and retains its verdure till the leaves fall to the ground. Nature seems to regard this tree as a plain and useful servant, not to be decked with beautiful colors or grand proportions for the admiration of the world. But, homely as it is, it bears flowers of some beauty. These consist of a profusion of purplish aments containing a mixture of gold, and hanging tremulously from their slender sprays. The extreme length and flexibility of these clusters of flowers render them exceedingly graceful, and permit them to be set in motion by the slightest breeze. The buds are seen hanging from the branches all winter, ready to burst into bloom when vivified by the first breath of spring.

THE WITCH-HAZEL.

The Witch-Hazel, or American Hamamelis, has many superficial points of resemblance to the common alder, beside its attachment to wet, muddy soils. Its ramification is peculiar; its side branches are very short, and, like the alder, it sends from one root a number of branches diverging outwards, but with an inward curvature of their extremities. The leaves are alternate and ovate, narrowest toward the stem and feather-veined. They turn to a sort of buff-color just before the flowers appear, which are yellow, having long linear petals, without beauty, growing in a cluster of four or five in the axils of the leaves. This tree is worthy of attention chiefly as a curiosity. Like the witch-elm of Great Britain, it was formerly used for divining-rods. Its magic powers might have been suggested by its remarkable habit of bearing flowers late in the autumn, thereby reversing the general order of nature; also by producing buds, flowers, and fruit in perfection at the same time. All such phenomena might be supposed to have some connection with witchcraft.

THE AILANTUS.

The Ailantus is a native of China, where it becomes a very large tree, often attaining the height of seventy feet. It was imported into Great Britain more than a century ago, for the benefit of the silk manufacture. A species of silkworm, which was known to be hardy and capable of forming its cocoons in the English climate, is attached to this tree and feeds upon its leaves. “The _Bombyx cynthia_,” says Mongredien, “thrives well in the open air (of England) in ordinary seasons, and requires no care after being once placed on the tree. About August it spins its cocoon on one of the leaflets, bending its edges inwards, so as to form a partial envelope. As the tree is deciduous, the leaf would drop and the cocoon with it, were it not that, by an instinct, the insect, before spinning its cocoon, attaches by its strongly adhesive threads the stalk of the leaf to the woody twig that sustains it. Hence the leaves that bear the cocoons are the only ones that do not drop, and there remain persistent through the whole of the winter.”

This experiment with the Ailantus proved a failure; but the tree, being very stately and ornamental, continued to be cultivated in pleasure-grounds. It was introduced into the United States in the early part of this century, and is now very common in almost all the States as a wayside tree. It possesses a great deal of beauty, being surpassed by very few trees in the size and graceful sweep of its large compound leaves, that retain their brightness and their verdure after midsummer, when our native trees have become dull and tarnished.

The leaves of the Ailantus are pinnate, containing from nine to eleven leaflets, each of these being as large as the leaf of the beech-tree. It has a great superficial resemblance to the velvet sumach, both in its foliage and ramification, so that on first sight one might easily be mistaken for the other; for its branches, though more elegant, have the same peculiar twist that gives the spray of the sumach the appearance of a stag’s horn. The flowers are greenish, inconspicuous, and in upright panicles, resembling those of the poison sumach. They emit a very disagreeable odor while the flowers are in perfection, impregnating the air for a week or more.

BURNING-BUSHES.

There is a class of plants, not all belonging to the same genus, which have received the name of Burning-Bushes from the profusion of scarlet or crimson fruit that covers their branches after the leaves have fallen. The most beautiful of these are two species of euonymus, cultivated in gardens and ornamental grounds, and bearing the names of strawberry-tree, spindle-tree, and burning-bush. The fruit is from three to five cleft, of a pale crimson, and before the leaves have dropped, which in the autumn are nearly of the same color, the tree might, at a glance, be mistaken for a bush in flames. The euonymus, though abundant in the forests of the Middle States, is not wild in any part of New England. Here it is known only as a beautiful occupant of gardens.

Another of the Burning-Bushes is the prinos, very common in wet grounds, and known in the winter by the scarlet berries, clinging, without any apparent stems, to every twig and branch, and forming one of the most attractive objects in a winter landscape. Every part of the bush is closely covered with this fruit, which is never tarnished by frost and remains upon it until the spring. This plant has never received a good specific name. It is sometimes called winter-berry,—a name as indefinite as Mayflower to mark species, or human being to distinguish persons. It is also called black alder, because it has a dark rind, to distinguish it from the true alder, which is also of the same color.

The evergreen species is a more elegant shrub, with bright green leaves of a fine lustre. It is abundant in Plymouth County in Massachusetts, around New Bedford, and in Connecticut. It it highly prized in ornamental grounds and by florists, who bind it into their bouquets and garlands of cut flowers. The leaves of this plant have some pleasant bitter properties, and were used by our predecessors as a substitute for the tea plant, under the name of Appalachian tea.

THE BUCKTHORN.

The Buckthorn would hardly deserve mention in these pages, except that it is very generally employed for clipped hedge-rows, in the suburbs of our cities. It is a native both of Europe and America, though as it is seen only in grounds which have formerly been cultivated, or near them, it was probably introduced. It attains the height of a small tree. It is without any beauty, having a thin foliage that falls early and is never tinted. Its black shining berries are the only ornament it possesses, and its only merit is that of patiently enduring the shears of the gardener.

THE PRIVET.

The Privet is a much handsomer shrub of an allied family. Its foliage is more delicate, both in hue and texture, not so thin, and almost evergreen. It has become extensively naturalized in our woods, and is distinguished by its clusters of white flowers in summer and its black, shining berries in autumn. It is abundant in all lands once tilled which have become wild, in the vicinity of our old towns, and was probably introduced at an early period for an ornamental hedge plant.

WOOD-SCENERY IN WINTER.

Winter scenery has met with a remarkable share of neglect both from authors and painters. Poets have sung of winter festivals and holidays, of Christmas festivities, of garlands of holly and trailing evergreens; but they have said little in prose or verse of the beauty or the sublimity of the season’s ordinary aspects. More effort has been made to divert attention from winter, as entirely disagreeable, except within doors, than to lure the mind to its attractions. Its features have been described as only waste and desolate, and what is really admirable in them has been set aside as hardly worthy of thought. It is true there is not much variety in the countenance of winter. Its expressions are wild and rude, and partake more of sublimity than beauty. It presents an insufficient number of individual objects that can be brought to the aid either of painting or poetry; so that the composition must be made up in great degree by auxiliaries drawn from the imagination.

Winter scenery is plainly monotonous. Instead of the charming mosaic of agriculture, displayed by summer and autumn in assemblages of fields, varying in color with the native hue of their different crops, we see either a dull universal waste of seared vegetation, or one broad expanse of whiteness, relieved only by the dark slender lines of fences and the broader stripes of roads and lanes winding over the face of the snow, interspersed with buildings and occasional woods and thickets. It is apparent, however, that snow increases the variety of the landscape, when it is mapped out with groves and fragments of forest, resembling wooded islets rising out of a white sea.

The charm of winter scenery is greatly heightened by the clearing of the forest, which hides the surface of the snow and causes the scene to wear less of the aspect of grandeur than of desolation. Grandeur characterizes the view wherever an almost uninterrupted expanse of some miles of surface is completely whitened with snow. The buoyancy we feel when rambling over such a landscape resembles that produced by great altitude. Our greater physical vigor in clear winter weather prepares us to be agreeably affected by surrounding views, because our thoughts are not diverted by any sense of uncomfortable exertion, as in the languid heat of summer. Our constant transition from valley to open plain, from plain to hill, and from hill to wood, keeps the mind constantly amused with new views. We are also inspired by the grandeur of the whole scene, and do not, as in summer, give ourselves up to voluptuous sensations, but to enjoyments more purely intellectual.