Part 11

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

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

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

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

TREES IN ASSEMBLAGES.

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

A great part of the territory of North America is still a wilderness; but the forests have been so extensively invaded that we see the original wood only in fragments, seldom forming unique assemblages. Especially in the Western States, the woods are chiefly sections of the forest, scattered in and around the spacious clearings, without many natural groups of trees to please the eye with their spontaneous beauty. They surround the clearing with palisades of naked pillars, unrelieved by any foliage below their summits. They remind me of city houses which have been cut asunder to widen an avenue, leaving their interior walls exposed to sight. These fragments of forest, and the acres of stumps in the recent clearings, are the grand picturesque deformity of the newly settled parts of the country. But when a wall of these forest palisades, a hundred feet in height, bounds the plain for miles of prospect, it forms a scene of unexceptionable grandeur.

It is chiefly in the old States that we see anything like a picturesque grouping of trees. There the wood assumes the character of both forest and grove, displaying a beautiful intermixture of them, combined with groups of coppice and shrubbery. Thickets generally occupy the low grounds, and coppice the elevations. The New England system of farming has been more favorable to the picturesque grouping of wood, and other objects, than that of any other part of the country. At the South, where agriculture is carried on in large plantations, we see spacious fields of tillage, and forest groups of corresponding size. But the small, independent farming of New England has produced a charming variety of wood, pasture, and tillage, so agreeably intermixed that we are never weary of looking upon it. The varied surface of the land has increased these advantages, producing an endless succession of those limited views which we call picturesque.

When a considerable space is covered with a dense growth of tall trees, the assemblage represents overhead an immense canopy of verdure, supported by innumerable pillars. No man could enter one of these dark solitudes without a deep impression of sublimity, especially during a general stillness of the winds. The voices of solitary birds, and other sounds peculiar to the woods, exalt this impression. Indeed, the grandeur and solemnity of a magnificent wood are hardly surpassed by anything else in nature. A very slight sound, during a calm, in one of these deep woods, has a distinctness almost startling, like the ticking of a clock in a vast hall. These feeble sounds afford us a more vivid sense of the magnitude of the place, and of its deep solemnity, than louder sounds, which are attended with a confused reverberation. The foliage, spread out in a continuous mass over our heads, produces the effect of a ceiling, and represents the roof of a vast temple.

In an open grove we experience different sensations. Here pleasantness and cheerfulness are combined, though a sense of grandeur may be excited by some noble trees. In a grove, the trees in general are well developed, having room enough to expand to their normal proportions. We often see their shadows cast separately upon the ground, which is green beneath them as in an orchard. If we look upon this assemblage from an adjoining eminence, we observe a variety of outlines by which we may identify the different species. A wild wood is sometimes converted into a grove by clearing it of its undergrowth and removing the smaller trees. Such an assemblage displays but few of the charms of a natural grove. A cleared wild wood yields shade and coolness; but the individual trees always retain their gaunt and imperfect shapes.

Artificial plantations display the characters of a grove; but all spontaneous growths are bordered and more or less interspersed with underwood. Hence a limited growth of forest, like a wooded island, surrounded by water or by a meadow, surpasses any artificial plantation as a picturesque and beautiful feature of landscape. The painter finds in these spontaneous collections of wood an endless variety of grouping and outline for the exercise of his art; and the botanist discovers, in their glens and hollows, hundreds of species that would perish in an open grove. Some woods are distinguished by a superfluity, others, like fir and beech woods, by a deficiency of undergrowth, and this differs in botanical characters as well as in quantity, according to the predominant species in the wood. In all woods, however, shrubbery is more abundant on the borders than in the interior. This border-growth contributes more than anything else to harmonize wood and field. It is the outside finish and native embellishment of every spontaneous assemblage of trees.

A wood in a valley between two open hills does not darken the prospect as if it covered the hills, though, if it be continuous, it hides the form of the ground. But when it has come up in scattered groups on a wide plain, without the interference of art, it surpasses every other description of wood-scenery. An assemblage of trees on a hillside is called a “hanging wood,” because it seems to overhang the valley beneath it. Thus situated it forms oppositions of a very striking sort, by lifting its summits into the sunshine while it deepens the shadows that rest upon the valley. Wood on steep declivities is an interesting sight, especially if an occasional opening reveals to us the precipitous character of the ground, and shows the difficulties which the trees have overcome in their struggle for life. Some of our pleasure comes from the evident utility of such a wood. We see at once that a rocky steep could not be occupied by any other vegetation, except under the protection of the trees, and that trees alone could resist the force of occasional torrents; that without them the ground would be barren, ugly, and profitless, and difficult and dangerous to those who should attempt to climb it.

THE WHITE OAK AND OTHER SPECIES.

The most important, though not the largest, of the American trees of the Oak family, and the one that is most like the English tree, is the American White Oak. It puts forth its branches at a comparatively small height, not in a horizontal direction, like the white pine, but extending to great length with many a crook, and presenting the same knotted and gnarled appearance for which the English oak is celebrated. Individual trees of this species differ so widely in their ramification that it would be difficult to select any one as the true type. Some are without a central shaft, being subdivided at a small height into numerous large branches, diverging at rather a wide angle from a common point of junction, like the elm. Others send up their trunk nearly straight to the very summit of the tree, giving out lateral branches from all points almost horizontally. There is a third form that seems to have no central shaft, because it is so greatly contorted that it can only be traced among its subordinate branches by the most careful inspection. The stature of the White Oak, when it has grown in an isolated situation, is low, and it has a wider spread than any other American tree.

The leaves of the White Oak are marked by several oblong, rounded lobes, without deep sinuosities. They turn to a pale chalky red in the autumn, remain on the tree all winter, and fall as the new foliage comes out in the spring. The tree may be readily distinguished from other oaks by the light color and scaly surface of the bark, without any deep corrugations. In Massachusetts very few standard White Oaks have escaped the axe of the “timberer,” on account of the great demand for the wood of this species. Were it not for the protection afforded by men of wealth to oaks in their own grounds, all the large standards would soon be utterly destroyed. Democracy, though essential to republican liberty, is fatal to all objects which are valuable for their poetic or picturesque qualities. It has no foresight, and no sentimental reverence for antiquity. It perceives the value of an object for present use; but it disdains to look forward to the interest of a coming generation. In regard to nature, what is called progress in America is only another name for devastation. How great soever the political evil of large estates, it is evident that in proportion to their multiplication will be the increased protection afforded to our trees and forests, as well as to the birds and quadrupeds that inhabit them.

THE SWAMP OAK.

The Swamp Oak bears resemblance in many points to the White Oak; but it has less breadth, and abounds in strangling branches growing from the trunk just below the junction of the principal boughs. This gnarled and contorted growth is one of the picturesque appendages of the Swamp Oak, distinguishing it from all the other species, and rendering it an important feature in a wild and rugged landscape. This cluster does not, like the vinery of the elm, clothe the whole extent of the bole, but resembles an inferior whorl of branches below the principal head. Above it, the tree forms rather a cylindrical head, and the principal branches are short compared with those of other oaks.

The leaves of this tree bear some resemblance to those of the chestnut. They are almost entire, and bluntly serrated, rather than scalloped. They are of a slightly reddish green when mature, and turn to a leather-color in the autumn. Trees of this species are at the present time very prominent objects of the landscape in Eastern Massachusetts, where they are very frequent in half-cleared lands that lie only a little above the sea level and contain considerable clay. The Swamp Oak in some favorable soils attains great size; but in New England, though an interesting object in scenery, it is only a tree of second magnitude. The Chestnut Oak is not uncommon around New Bedford and many other parts of New England, but it is not an inhabitant of the woods near Boston.

THE RED OAK.

The Red Oak is the largest of the genus belonging to American woods, and the least useful for any purposes except those of shade and ornament. It is very regular and well proportioned, having a remarkably wide spread, and branches comparatively but little contorted. It is taller than the white oak, and does not branch so near the ground; but it possesses in a high degree that expression of majesty for which the oak is celebrated. The scarcity of trees of this species by our roadsides is remarkable, since they display the union of so many of the qualities which are desirable in a shade-tree. The Red Oak thrives well on a poor soil, and grows with great rapidity; its foliage is very beautiful, and deeply cleft, like that of the scarlet oak, though larger, and its reddish-purple tints in the autumn are hardly inferior. Perhaps the scarcity of oaks in general by the wayside is owing to the peculiar shape of their roots, which extend to a great depth in the soil, and render the trees very difficult to be transplanted. Hence the wayside oaks are such as have come up spontaneously in the places they occupy, and were there when the road was laid out.

THE SCARLET OAK.

The Scarlet Oak in many points resembles the one I have just described. Like the red oak, its branches are regular and comparatively free from contortions, and the quality of its timber is inferior. The leaves are distinguished from those of all other species by their deep sinuosities, being almost like the skeletons of a leaf, the lobes terminating in narrow teeth with long sharp points. This tree is greatly admired in landscape, and on large estates it is constantly preserved as an ornament. Its chief attraction is the bright color of its autumn foliage; but the fine gloss and deep verdure of its leaves in summer are very beautiful. It turns in autumn to a dark crimson, not a scarlet, as the name would imply. It could not justly be named scarlet, save when it is brightened by sunshine, which adds to all crimson foliage a little gold. But as the oaks are very late in assuming their autumnal tints, and are not in their brightest condition until the maples have faded, the Scarlet Oak, when it has attained its full splendor, is the most beautiful tree of the forest.

There are certain trees which we do not highly value in landscape as single individuals, while they attract our attention in assemblages. Our hills, for example, in some parts of the country, are nearly covered with a growth of Scrub Oak, or Bear Oak. They are not ornamental as single trees, and they are prone to usurp the whole ground, excluding that charming variety of shrubs which constitutes the beauty of our half-wooded hills.

THE BLACK OAK.

It is not my intention to enumerate all the species of this genus; but I must give a passing notice to the Black Oak, because it is a common and very large tree in favorable situations. It has been named Black Oak on account of the very dark color of its outer bark; and Yellow Oak,—a name quite as common as the other,—from the yellow color of its inner bark, which produces the quercitron used by dyers. It may also have been so called from the yellowish leather-color of its leaves in the autumn, resembling the color of a dry oak-leaf. Many large trees of this species are found in the New England States. In Kentucky it is named Black Jack, and constitutes the principal timber of those extensive tracts called Oak Barrens.

THE LAUREL.

Of the Laurel, so celebrated in the romance of classical literature, there are only two species in the New England States,—the Benzoin and the Sassafras. But those two shrubs, being deciduous, are not associated in the minds of the people with the true Laurel. They have given this name to the Kalmia, which is evergreen and bears a superficial resemblance to the Laurel of the poets. A curious fact is related by Phillips, in his “Sylva Florifica,” of the Laurel, which may not be out of place in these pages. In the Middle Ages, favorite poets, who were generally minstrels, were crowned with wreaths of Laurel branches containing the berries; and this custom was imitated in colleges, when they conferred a degree upon graduating students. “Students,” says Phillips, “who have taken their degrees at the Universities, are called bachelors, from the French bachelier, which is derived from the Latin baccalaureus,—a laurel-berry. These students were not allowed to marry, lest the duties of husband and father should take them from their literary pursuits; and in time all single men were called bachelors.”

THE SASSAFRAS.