Part 6

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

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

THE TUPELO.

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

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

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

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

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

THE HORNBEAM.

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

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

THE HOP HORNBEAM.

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

INSECURITY OF OUR FORESTS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

ORCHARD TREES.

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

The 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.