Part 8

THE SNOWY MESPILUS.

This tree, which is conspicuous in the early part of May from its profusion of white flowers in the swamps, is very little known except in Canada and some of the northern provinces of this continent. Yet it is far from being rare, and is one of the most elegant of the small trees in our native forest; being allied to the mountain ash, branching in a similar manner, but exhibiting a neater and more beautiful spray. It is exclusively a Northern tree, and one of the earliest to put forth flowers and leaves after the elm and the red maple. This tree is spread over almost all the northern part of the American continent and the Alleghany Mountains. From its habit of flowering at the time of the annual appearance of the shad in our waters, it is very frequently called the Shad-bush.

The Snowy Mespilus is one of those trees which botanists have described under so many different names that I should shrink from the task, if the duty were assigned me, of collecting all that have been applied to it. But whenever there is much contrariety of opinion among botanists respecting the generic rank and denomination of any plant, I usually resort to its earliest botanical title. Indeed, I feel assured that the nice distinctions upon which later botanists have founded its claims to a different generic position are very much of the same nature as those which divide theologians, whose ecclesiastical acuteness enables them to discern a palpable difference in two doctrinal points, neither of which to an unregenerate mind have any meaning at all. I therefore prefer to call this tree a Mespilus, after Linnæus and Michaux, to save myself the trouble of those infinitesimal investigations that might convince me of the propriety of placing it in every one of a dozen other different genera.

The Shad-bush is a small tree inclining to grow in clumps, instead of making a single stem from the root, and is seldom quite so large or so tall as the mountain ash. The leaves are small and alternate, resembling those of a pear-tree, but more elegant, and covered with a soft silken down on their first appearance; as the foliage ripens, it becomes smooth and glossy. The flowers are white, but without beauty, growing in loose panicles at the ends of the branches. The product of these flowers is a small fruit, about the size of the common wild gooseberry, of a dark crimson color and a very agreeable flavor. This fruit is used very generally in the northern provinces, where the tree is larger and more productive than in New England.

THE CHOKEBERRY.

A smaller species of mespilus, familiarly known as the Chokeberry, is more interesting as a flowering plant. It is a slender shrub, with beautiful finely toothed leaves, bearing flowers in clusters very much like those of the hawthorn, with white petals and purple or crimson anthers. The flowers stand erect, but the berries, which are very astringent and are often gathered carelessly with whortleberries, hang from the branches in full pendent clusters. The flowers of this plant are very conspicuous in the latter part of May in all our meadows.

THE MOUNTAIN ASH.

The Mountain Ash, or Rowan-tree, is beautiful in all its conditions and at all seasons. Its elegant pinnate foliage, not flowing, like that of the locust, but neat, firm, and finely serrate, and its flowers, in large clusters, like those of the elder, render the tree very conspicuous when in blossom. But its greatest ornament is the scarlet fruit that hangs from every branch in the autumn. We could hardly be persuaded to introduce the Mountain Ash into a picture. The primness of its form injures it as a picturesque object in landscape. Its beauty is such as children admire, who are guided by a sense of its material attractions, and do not generally prize a tree except for its elegance and colors. The beauty, however, which attracts the sensual eye in this case is deceitful, for its fruit is of a bitter, sour flavor, and incapable of improvement. European writers say that thrushes are very fond of this fruit. In our land it remains untouched, at least until late in the season, after the black cherries are gone, which tempt all kinds of birds by their superior flavor. The American Mountain Ash differs from the European tree only by its smaller fruit.

I have said that the Mountain Ash is wanting in picturesque qualities; but my remark applies only to its form and habit of growth. On the other hand, it is peculiarly the tree of romance, being remarkable for the many superstitious customs connected with it. According to Evelyn, “There is no churchyard in Wales without a Mountain Ash-tree planted in it, as the yew-trees are in the churchyards of England. So on a certain day of the year everybody in Wales religiously wears a cross made of the wood.” Gilpin says that in his time “a stump of the Mountain Ash was generally found in some old burial-place, or near the circle of a Druid’s temple, the rites of which were formerly performed under its shade.”

Many of the inhabitants of Great Britain still believe that a branch of the Rowan-tree carried about with them is a charm against the evil influences of witchcraft. It is remarkable that similar superstitions connected with this tree prevail among the North American Indians; and it is not improbable that they were introduced by the early Welsh colonists, before the discovery of America by Columbus.

RELATIONS OF TREES TO WATER.

There is a spot which I used to visit some years ago, that seemed to me one of the most enchanting of natural scenes. It was a level plain of about ten acres, surrounded by a narrow stream that was fed by a steep ridge forming a sort of amphitheatre round more than half its circumference. The ridge was a declivity of near a hundred feet in height, and so steep that you could climb it only by taking hold of the trees and bushes that covered it. The whole surface consisted of a thin stratum of soil deposited upon a slaty rock; but the growth of trees upon this slope was beautiful and immense, and the water that was constantly trickling from a thousand fountains kept the ground all the year green with mosses and ferns, and gay with many varieties of flowers. The soil was so rich in the meadow enclosed by this ridge, and annually fertilized by the débris washed from the hills, that the proprietor every summer filled his barns with hay, which was obtained from it without any cultivation.

I revisited this spot a few years since, after a long period of absence. A new owner, “a man of progress and enterprise,” had felled the trees that grew so beautifully on the steep sides of this elevation, and valley and hill have become a dreary and unprofitable waste. The thin soil that sustained the forest, no longer protected by the trees and their undergrowth, has been washed down into the valley, leaving nothing but a bald, rocky surface, whose hideousness is scarcely relieved by a few straggling vines. The valley is also ruined; for the inundations to which it is subject after any copious rain destroy every crop that is planted upon it, and render it impracticable for tillage. It is covered with sand heaps; the little stream that glided round it, fringed with azaleas and wild roses, has disappeared, and the land is reduced to a barren pasture.

The general practice of the pioneers of civilization on this continent was to cut down the wood chiefly from the uplands and the lower slopes of the hills and mountains. They cleared those tracts which were most valuable for immediate use and cultivation. Necessity led them to pursue the very course required by the laws of nature for improving the soil and climate. The first clearings were made chiefly for purposes of agriculture; and as every farm was surrounded by a rampart of woods, it was sheltered from the force of the winds and pleasantly open to the sun. But when men began to fell the woods to supply the demands of towns and cities for fuel and lumber, these clearings were gradually deprived of their shelter, by levelling the surrounding forest and opening the country to the winds from every quarter. But the clearing of the wood from the plains, while it has rendered the climate more unstable, has not been the cause of inundations or the diminution of streams. This evil has been produced by clearing the mountains and lesser elevations having steep or rocky sides; and if this destructive work is not checked by legislation or by the wisdom of the people, plains and valleys now green and fertile will become profitless for tillage or pasture, and the advantages we shall have sacrificed will be irretrievable in the lifetime of a single generation. The same indiscriminate felling of woods has rendered many a once fertile region in Europe barren and uninhabitable, equally among the cold mountains of Norway and the sunny plains of Brittany.

Our climate suffers more than formerly from summer droughts. Many ancient streams have entirely disappeared, and a still greater number are dry in summer. Boussingault mentions a fact that clearly illustrates the condition to which we may be exposed in thousands of locations on this continent. In the island of Ascension there was a beautiful spring, situated at the foot of a mountain which was covered with wood. By degrees the spring became less copious, and at length failed. While its waters were annually diminishing in bulk, the mountain had been gradually cleared of its forest. The disappearance of the spring was attributed to the clearing. The mountain was again planted, and as the new growth of wood increased, the spring reappeared, and finally attained its original fulness. More to be dreaded than drought, and produced by the same cause,—the clearing of steep declivities of their wood,—are the excessive inundations to which all parts of the country are subject.

If it were in the power of man to dispose his woods and tillage in the most advantageous manner, he might not only produce an important amelioration of the general climate, but he might diminish the frequency and severity both of droughts and inundations, and preserve the general fulness of streams. If every man were to pursue that course which would protect his own grounds from these evils, it would be sufficient to bring about this beneficent result. If each owner of land would keep all his hills and declivities, and all slopes that contain only a thin deposit of soil or a quarry, covered with forest, he would lessen his local inundations from vernal thaws and summer rains. Such a covering of wood tends to equalize the moisture that is distributed over the land, causing it, when showered upon the hills, to be retained by the mechanical action of the trees and their undergrowth of shrubs and herbaceous plants, and by the spongy surface of the soil underneath them, made porous by mosses, decayed leaves, and other débris, so that the plains and valleys have a moderate oozing supply of moisture for a long time after every shower. Without this covering, the water when precipitated upon the slopes, would immediately rush down over an unprotected surface in torrents upon the space below.

Every one has witnessed the effects of clearing the woods and other vegetation from moderate declivities in his own neighborhood. He has observed how rapidly a valley is inundated by heavy showers, if the rising grounds that form its basin are bare of trees and planted with the farmer’s crops. Even grass alone serves to check the rapidity with which the water finds its way to the bottom of the slope. Let it be covered with bushes and vines, and the water flows with a speed still more diminished. Let this shrubbery grow into a forest, and the valley would never be inundated except by a long-continued and flooding rain. Woods and their undergrowth are indeed the only barriers against frequent and sudden inundations, and the only means in the economy of nature for preserving an equal fulness of streams during all seasons of the year.

At first thought, it may seem strange that the clearing of forests should be equally the cause both of drought and inundations; but these apparently incompatible facts are easily explained by considering the different effects produced by woods standing in different situations. An excess of moisture in the valleys comes from the drainage of the hills, and the same conditions that will cause them to be dried up at certain times will cause them to be flooded at others. Nature’s design seems to be to preserve a constant moderate fulness of streams and standing water. This purpose she accomplishes by clothing the general surface of the country with wood. When man disturbs this arrangement, he may produce evil consequences which he had never anticipated. We are not, however, to conclude that we may not improve the soil and climate by changing the original condition of this wooded surface. The clearing of the forest may be reduced to a science whose laws are as sure and unexceptionable as those of mechanics and hydraulics. Though it has not gained much attention from the public mind, it is well understood by the learned who have made this branch of vegetable meteorology their special study. Our danger lies in neglecting to apply these laws to operations in the forest, and in preferring to obtain certain immediate commercial advantages, at the risk of inflicting evils of incalculable extent upon a coming generation.

THE LINDEN-TREE.

The Lime or Linden-tree is generally known among our countrymen as the Bass, and was not, before the present century, employed as a wayside tree. The old standards seen in our ancient villages are European Limes. During the past thirty years the American tree has been very generally planted by roadsides, in avenues and pleasure-grounds, and few trees are more highly valued in these situations. But the American has less beauty than the European tree, which is clothed with softer foliage, has a smaller leaf, and a neater and more elegant spray. Our native Lime bears larger and more conspicuous flowers, in heavier clusters, but of inferior sweetness. Both species are remarkable for their size and longevity. The Lime in Great Britain is a tree of first magnitude, frequently rising to the height of eighty or ninety feet, with a trunk of proportional diameter. The American species is not inferior to it in size or altitude. Some of the largest trees in Western New York are Limes.

The Lime has in all ages been celebrated for the fragrance of its flowers and the excellence of the honey made from them. The famous Mount Hybla was covered with Lime-trees. The aroma from its flowers is like that of mignonette; it perfumes the whole atmosphere, though never disagreeable from excess, and is perceptible to the inhabitants of all the beehives within the circuit of a mile. The Lime is also remarkable for a general beauty of proportion, a bright verdure contrasting finely with the dark-colored branches, and an outline regular and symmetrical without formality. When covered with leaves, it bears some resemblance in outward form to the maple, but surpasses it, when leafless, in the beauty of its ramification. The leaves are roundish heart-shaped, of a clear and lively green in summer, but acquiring a spotted and rusty look in autumn, and adding nothing to the splendors of that season. In the spring, however, no tree of our forest displays a more beautiful verdure before it acquires the uniform dark green of the summer woods.

The branches of the Lime have a very dark-colored surface, distinguishing it from other trees that agree with it in size and general appearance. The bark of the maple, for example, is light and of an ashen-gray tint, and that of the poplars a sort of greenish clay-color. This dark hue renders the spray of the Lime very conspicuous, after a shower, and in spring, when all the leaves are of a light and brilliant green; but these incidental beauties are not very lasting. The branches, being alternate, are very minutely subdivided, and their extremities neatly drawn inwards, so that in a denuded state it is one of our finest winter ornaments. The spray of the beech is more airy, that of the elm more flowing, and that of the oak more curiously netted and interwoven; but the spray of the Lime is remarkable for its freedom from all defect.

George Barnard, who, being a painter, looks upon trees as they are more or less adapted to his own art, remarks:—

“When young, or indeed up to an age perhaps of sixty or seventy years, the Lime has a formal appearance, with little variation in its masses of foliage; but let some accident occur, such as the breaking down of a large branch, or the removal of a neighboring tree, it then presents a charming picture.”

One of the curiosities of the Lime-tree that deserves notice is a certain winged appendage to the seed, which is a round nut about the size of a pea. This is attached to a long stem, from the end of which, joined to it obliquely, descends a ribbon-like bract, causing it, when it falls, to spin round and travel a long distance upon the wind. If the tree stands on the borders of a pond, where the seeds fall upon the surface, this winged appendage performs the part of a sail, and causes the seeds to be wafted to different points of the opposite shore.

THE KALMIA.

The Kalmia, on account of its superficial resemblance to the green bay-tree, often called the American laurel, is more nearly allied to the heath. The name of Kalmia, which is more musical than many others of similar derivation, was given to this genus of evergreen shrubs by Linnæus, in honor of Peter Kalm, a distinguished botanist and one of his pupils. This is exclusively an American family of plants, containing only five species, three of which are natives of New England soil and two of them among our most common shrubs.

THE MOUNTAIN LAUREL.