Part 26

In Maine the Arbor-Vitæ, next to the black spruce and hemlock, is more frequent than any other of the evergreens. It delights in cold, damp soils, and abounds on the rocky shores of streams and lakes. It sometimes constitutes a forest of several acres, with but a slight intermixture of other trees, predominating in proportion to the wetness of the soil. In the driest parts of these bogs we find the black spruce, the hemlock, the red birch, and, rarely, a few white pines.

THE YEW.

In Great Britain the Yew is one of the most celebrated of trees, the one that is generally consecrated to burial-grounds, and that most frequently overshadows the graves of the dead. It is a tree of second magnitude, and remarkable for its longevity. The American Yew is seldom anything more than a prostrate shrub, resembling branches of fir spreading over the ground. It is said, however, that although it is a creeping shrub on the Atlantic coast, it becomes a tree on the coast of the Pacific; in like manner the alder, which is a shrub here, becomes a tree in Oregon and California.

In New England, the Yew is a solitary tree, growing among deciduous trees as if it required their protection. It never constitutes a forest either here or in Europe. It seems to love the shade, and when it is not under the protection of trees, it is found on the shady sides of hills, and in moist, clayey soils, but never on sandy plains. I shall not speak of the romantic customs associated with the European Yew; but the absence of this tree deprives us of a very romantic feature in landscape.

THE WHITE PINE.

The pines in general have not the formality that distinguishes the fir and the spruce. They seldom display so much of a pyramidal shape as we observe in a symmetrical fir. Their leaves are longer, and their branches not so regularly given out in whorls. They are also more generally round-headed when old; their leaves are in small fascicles, containing from two to five, while those of the fir are arranged singly along the branch or round it. The pine contains a greater quantity of turpentine than any other family of resinous trees, and many of the species are of the highest value in the mechanic arts. In the New England States three species only are known, and of these two only are common.

The most remarkable of this family of trees, and the one that comes nearest the fir in symmetry and formality, is the White Pine. But though like the fir in symmetry, it resembles it the least in all other qualities, having the most flexibility of foliage of all the pines, and bearing its leaves in fives. The White Pine, according to Michaux, “is the loftiest and most valuable of the productions of the North American forest. Its summit is seen at an immense distance, aspiring to heaven, far above the heads of the surrounding trees.”

At first sight of a full-grown and well-proportioned White Pine we are struck with its evident adaptedness to all purposes of shade and shelter, in its wide-spread, horizontal branches, and in its silken tufted foliage. It is not impenetrable to sunshine, but admits it in constant flickering beams of light; and we perceive immediately that there is no other tree in whose shade it would be more agreeable to recline on a hot summer’s day, or under whose protection we might obtain a greater amount of comfort in winter. The uniform arrangement of its branches in whorls, forming a series of stages one above another, its tasselled foliage in long, silky tufts at the ends of the branches, and its symmetrical outline, constitute in the most obvious sense a beautiful tree. These tufts, though not pendulous, have none of the stiff bristling appearance of the other pines; and their verdure is of a sober, not a sombre tint, though rather dull in lustre.

The symmetry or formality which some writers condemn in the style of this tree is not of a disagreeable kind, like that of the Norway spruce. It is combined both with majesty and grace, and increases the grandeur of its appearance, like the architectural proportions of a temple in which grandeur could not be produced without symmetry. This tree has much of the amplitude so remarkable in the cedar of Lebanon. Hence the look of primness, which the firs always retain, is counteracted by its nobleness and altitude. It is combined also with a certain negligent habit of its leafy robes, that softens its dignity into grace, and causes it to wear its honors like one who feels no constraint under their burden.

The White Pine has no legendary history. Being an American tree, it is celebrated neither in poetry nor romance. It is associated with no classical images, like the oak, nor with sacred literature, like the cedar of Lebanon. It has no poetic history and no reputation save what it may have derived from the easy motion of its foliage, the gentle sweep of its smaller branches, its terebinthine odors, and its pleasant, romantic shade. It has no factitious charms, but depends on its own intrinsic merits for the pleasure it affords either the sight or the mind. In New England, the White Pine contributes more than any other evergreen to give character to our scenery. It is seen both in large and small assemblages and in clumps, but not often as a solitary standard. We see it in our journeys projecting over eminences that are encircled by old roads, shading the traveller from the sun and protecting him from the wind. We have sat under its fragrant shade, in our pedestrian tours, when weary with heat and exercise we sought its coolness, and blessed it as one of the guardian deities of the wood. We are familiar with it in all pleasant, solitary places; and in our evening rambles we have listened underneath its boughs to the notes of the green warbler, who selects it for his abode, and has caught a plaintive tone from the winds that sweep through its long sibilant leaves.

The White Pine is a tree that harmonizes with all situations, rude or cultivated, level or abrupt. On the side of a hill it adds grandeur to the declivity, and yields a sweeter look of tranquillity to the green pastoral meadow. It gives a darker frown to the projecting cliff, and a more awful uncertainty to the mountain pass or the craggy ravine. Over desolate scenery it spreads a cheerfulness that detracts nothing from its power over the imagination, while it relieves it of its terrors, by presenting a green bulwark of defence against the wind and the storm. Nothing can be more picturesque in scenery than the occasional groups of White Pines on the bald hills of our New England coast, elsewhere too often a dreary waste of homely bush and brier.

Such are its picturesque characters. It may also be regarded as a true symbol of benevolence. Under its outspread roof, numerous small animals, nestling in the bed of dry leaves that cover the ground, find shelter and repose. The squirrel feeds upon the kernels obtained from its cones; the hare browses upon the trefoil and the spicy foliage of the hypericum, which are protected in its shade, and the fawn reposes on its brown couch of leaves, unmolested by the outer tempest. From its green arbors the quails are often roused in midwinter, where they feed upon the berries of the michella and the spicy wintergreen. Nature, indeed, seems to have designed this tree to protect her living creatures both in summer and winter.

The geographical limits of the White Pine are not very extensive. It is confined to northern regions, but does not extend so far north as the red pine or the fir. In the Southern and Middle States it is seen only in the Alleghany range; but it constitutes the principal timber of the pine forests of Canada and the New England States, which Loudon says are “the most extensive in the world.” The débris of granite affords the best soil for the coniferous trees, but the White Pine is seldom found in marshes. The tree that bears the nearest resemblance to it is the Lambert pine of California, to which our tree approximates in size. Michaux measured two trunks near the banks of the Kennebec, one of which was one hundred and fifty-four feet in length, and fifty-four inches in diameter; the other, one hundred and forty-two feet in length, and forty-four inches in diameter.

THE PITCH PINE.

The Pitch Pine differs very widely in its style of growth from the white pine, and displays fewer of those points that excite our admiration. Its leaves form larger and more diffusive tufts, and are more bristling and erect from their superior rigidity. It is remarkable for its rough and shaggy appearance; hence its Latin name, rigida. Indeed there is not a tree in our forest that equals it in the roughness that is manifest in every part of it and in every stage of its growth. This is one of the most common trees in the Southern “pine barrens”; and some of the ancient pine woods in New England were made up principally of this species. Such was that extensive wood near Concord, N. H., known by the poetic appellation of “Dark Plains,” and in the early part of the century occupying a wide flat region in the valley of the Merrimack River.

This species does not give out its branches horizontally, nor in regular whorls. They run up at rather a wide angle with the stem, forming a head that approaches more nearly to a globular shape than that of any other of the American conifers. The branches have frequently a tortuous shape; for when crowded in a dense wood they do not so easily perish as those of the white pine, but turn in various directions to find light and space. They are likewise often bent downwards at their terminations, with a very apparent curvature. There is no conifer that displays so few straight lines in its composition; and, having no exact symmetry in its proportions, it may be mutilated to a considerable extent without losing its normal characters of beauty.

In young trees of this species the whorls of branches may be plainly distinguished; but as the tree increases in size, so many members of the whorl become abortive that all regularity of staging in their arrangement is destroyed. As these branches are numerous, with but little space between the original whorls, they seem to project from every part of the trunk. This tree displays very little primness in its shape, or of a spiry form, save when it is a very young tree. A peculiar habit of the Pitch Pine is that of producing little branchlets full of leaves along the stem from the root upwards, completely enveloping some of the principal boughs. These are rarely anything more than tufts of leaves standing out as if they had been grafted into the bark of the tree. It seems to be stimulated to produce this anomalous growth by the loss of its small branches. It then soon covers itself with this embroidery, and thus garlanded presents a picturesque appearance more interesting than that of the perfect trees.

I have seen very beautiful Pitch Pine trees of an abnormal shape, caused by the loss, when young, of the leading shoot. The lateral branches next below this terminal bud, being thus converted into leaders, produce two and sometimes three leading branches, giving the tree some of the characters of the deciduous species. The white pine is not improved by a similar accident, as it loses thereby the expression of grandeur that comes from the length and size of its lateral branches, which are always diminished by coming from two or more leading shafts. Michaux remarks that when Pitch-Pines “grow in masses, the cones are dispersed singly over the branches, and they shed their seeds the first autumn after they mature. But on solitary trees the cones are collected in groups of four or five, or even a larger number, and will remain on the trees, closed, for several years.”

The Pitch Pine abounds all along the coast from Massachusetts to the Carolinas; but it is rare in the northern parts of Maine and New Hampshire and north of these States. It is said to have been very abundant in the southern part of New England before the eighteenth century, but large forests of it were consumed in making tar for exportation to Great Britain. The Pitch Pine woods of the present day consist of small stunted trees, showing by their inferior thrift that they stand upon an exhausted soil.

The trees of this species, for the most part too homely and rough to please the sight, are not generally admired as objects in the landscape; but there is a variety in their shapes that makes amends for their want of comeliness and gives them a marked importance in scenery. We do not in general sufficiently estimate the value of homely objects among the scenes of nature, though they are indeed the groundwork of all charming scenery, and set off to advantage the beauty of more comely objects. They give rest and relief to the eye, after it has felt the stimulus of beautiful forms and colors, that would soon pall upon the sense; and they leave imagination free to dress the scene according to our own fancy.

Hence I am led to prize many a homely tree as possessing a high value, by exalting our susceptibility to beauty, and by relieving nature of that monotony which is so apparent when all the objects in a scene are beautiful. We see this monotony in all dressed grounds of considerable extent. We soon become weary of their ever-flowing lines of grace and elegance, and the harmonious blending of forms and colors introduced by art. This principle explains the difficulty of reading a whole volume written in verse. We soon weary of luxuries; and after strolling in grounds laid out in gaudy flower-beds and smooth shaven lawn, the tired eye rests with tranquil delight upon rude pastures bounded by loose stone-walls, and hills embroidered with ferns and covered with boulders.

The pines are not classed with deciduous trees, yet they shed their leaves in autumn with constant regularity. Late in October you may see the yellow or brown foliage, then ready to fall, surrounding the branches of the previous year’s growth, forming a whorl of brown fringe, surmounted by a tuft of green leaves of the present year’s growth. Their leaves always turn yellow before they fall. In the arbor-vitæ there is a curious intermixture of brown leaves with the green growth of the past summer; but, before November arrives, all the faded leaves drop, and the tree forms a mass of unmingled verdure.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling. 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. 3. Enclosed italics font in underscores.