Part 5

to investigate a moss, a fungus, a beetle, or a shell, in “ways of pleasantness, and in paths of peace.” They are all the formation of Supreme Intelligence, for a wise and a worthy end, and may lead us by gentle gradations to a faint conception of the powers of infinite wisdom. They have calmed and amused some of us worms and reptiles, and possibly bettered us for our change to a new and more perfect order of being.

We yet possess two forest trees, beautiful and unmutilated! An oak in Shellard’s lane has escaped the woodman’s ax, the hedger’s bill: it stands on the side of the waste, and has long afforded shade and shelter to an adjoining farm-house. These circumstances, and not being valuable as a timber tree, may have contributed to its preservation: its hamadryad is left alone in the land to mourn her lost companions. This tree is not mentioned as being at all comparable with the gigantic productions of the kind that we have accounts of, and perhaps by many would be passed by unnoticed; yet it is deserving of some regard, from the vegetable powers that have existed, and still continue in its trunk. The bole, at some very distant period, by accident or design, appears to have lost its leading shoot, and in consequence has thrown out several collateral branches: three remain, which have now grown into trees themselves existing in full vigor, and constituting a whole of much beauty. It is a characteristic specimen of an oak, with all the corrugations, twistings, furrows, and irregularities, which this tree with a free growth generally exhibits; expanding its three vigorous arms to the Sun of Heaven with a pendent, easy dignity, that seems like an enjoyment of unrestrained liberty. We have no good criterion to regulate our judgment with regard to the age of trees of considerable antiquity. In young ones the rings of the wood will often afford a reasonable ground for opinion; but in old trees these marks are absorbed, obscured, or uncertainly formed, so as to be no sufficient guide. In particular cases, such as inclosure of waste or other lands, formation of parks and plantations, the times of planting are sufficiently recorded; but generally speaking, neither oral tradition, nor written testimony, remains to indicate the period when a tree sprang up. This oak, however, from all the signs of age that it retains, must have existed as a sapling at some very distant day, and is the most undoubted relic of antiquity in the vegetable world that we possess.

The elm, and the beech, in age, frequently present very decided vestiges of a former day; but the oak of centuries has impressed upon it indelible characters of antiquity, and is a visible vetustum monumentum. The wreathings and contortions of its bark, even its once vigorous, but now sapless limbs, with their bare and bleached summits, stag-headed and erect, maintain a regality of character which perfectly indicates the monarch of the forest, and which no other tree assumes. We have many accounts in different authors of the prodigious size which the oak has attained in England; but most of the trees, that have arrived at any vast circumference, seem, like this our village oak, to have lost their leaders when young, and hence are short in the but: yet we have records of aspiring timber trees of this species of astonishing magnitude, though perhaps none of them exceed those mentioned by Evelyn, cut down near Newberry in Berkshire, one of which ran fifty feet clear without a knot, and cut clean timber five feet square at the base; its consort gave forty feet of clear, straight timber, squaring four feet at its base, and nearly a yard at the top. The “lady oak,” mentioned by Sir E. Harley, produced a but of forty feet, and squared five feet throughout its whole length, thus producing twenty tons of timber, a mass of surprising grandeur! But the most magnificent oak ever known to have grown in England was probably that dug out of Hatfield bog: it was a hundred and twenty five feet in length, twelve in diameter at the base, ten in the middle, and six at the smaller end, where broken off; so that the but for sixty feet squared seven feet of timber, and four its entire length. Twenty pounds were offered for this tree. This extraordinary vegetable should have been preserved in some museum, as unequalled in ancient, unapproachable in modern days; exceeding in magnitude even that famous larch brought to Rome in the reign of Tiberius, and reserved as a curiosity for many years, which was one hundred and twenty feet long, and two feet in diameter its whole length.

Indigenous, flourishing, and inured to all the caprices of our climate as the oak is, yet it produces its fruit very precariously, and at times sparingly, like a plant of exotic origin; which does not appear to have been the case formerly, when such herds of swine were maintained by the produce of our woods alone, and grants from manorial lords for permission thus to feed them were recorded with care as valuable obtainments.

The cause of infertility in indigenous trees can arise from no defect of construction in the organs of fructification, but from some obstruction, perversion, redundancy, or vitiation of the natural powers; which is particularly manifested by the faculty which they possess at one period of producing fruit, and their impotency at another. This imbecility from one cause or another probably influences at periods every tree or herb that springs from the earth; but in regard to the oak, the most general and probable cause of its sterility is suspended circulation. This is more immediately brought to notice from our custom of barking the timber of this tree in the spring. At times our barkers go on rapidly with their work; yet in a few hours a frost, or a sharp wind, will put an entire stop to their operations, in consequence of the cessation of the flow of sap, which is followed by the adhesion of the bark to the wood. Whenever this nutriment ceases to be supplied, the immature and tender germen must languish; and if the supply be long suspended, it must perish from deficiency of food. That such is the natural effect of spring frosts and sudden chills, more injurious probably to the fruit in this immature state, from its greater delicacy, than when it is more developed, is reasonable to suppose: how far a change of seasons may have taken place to accomplish the injury alluded to, more commonly now than in former periods, we have no criterion for proving; but if failures of the acorn crop took place as frequently in times when swine’s flesh was mostly the diet of the middle and lower classes of people as they do now, the privations of our forefathers were severe indeed.

An interesting volume might be formed, entitled the “History of the Oak.” The first mention that we know of this tree is that ancient of days, the “oak of Mamre,” under which Abraham sat in the heat of the day; and that it was an oak, one of the fathers, Eusebius, tells us, as it remained an object of veneration even in the time of Constantine. We would note all the celebrated querci of antiquity; the use, value, strength, duration, &c., of its timber; the infinite variety of purposes to which its various parts are applied by the mechanic, the dyer, the artisan; the insects, which amount to hundreds of species, that live and have their being on the oak; the vegetables it nourishes, ferns, lichens, mosses, agarics, boleti, &c.; the sawdust, apples, gallnuts, acorns, leaves, and innumerable et cetera of Britain’s guardian tree. However highly the Druids might venerate the oak, and make it the emblem and residence of their deity, yet the intrinsic value of this tree was unknown to our remote forefathers. All their knowledge of its virtues was probably included in its uses for building, its acorns for their swine, and, perhaps, its bark for preserving the skins which they used. Modern ingenuity and necessity have brought its various qualities into notice, or our oak would have received such honors, as in days of darkness were conferred upon inanimate things: Attica considered the olive as the gift of her tutelary goddess, and some benevolent saint would have been lauded and hymned, for having endowed the oak of Britain with such extensive virtues for the good of mankind.

The other tree, that I mentioned above as one of our boasts, is a wych or broad-leaved elm (ulmus montana), standing near the turnpike road. This very fine and stately tree was saved, when the merciless ax levelled all its companions, at the solicitation of a lady now no more, and remains a testimony of her good taste, the civility of the agent, and the ornament of our village. When in youth, this species presents a character decidedly different from the common elm (ulmus campestris). Its branches at times are so strong as to be nearly equal in size with the main stem that supports them, and loaded with such a profusion of foliage, that the sprays become pendent, and give the idea of luxuriance with weakness, of a growth beyond strength; advancing in age, its arms and sprays become less pensile, as the leaves are smaller and less burdensome; yet they hang commonly in large heavy masses, like what we formerly were accustomed to see in the aquatintas of Jukes, and the prints of that period. It can however occasionally assume the appearance of elegance and lightness, and is usually less aspiring and more branching than the common elm; its dense foliage yields a fine shade for cattle, and it deserves even on this account, if it possessed no other merit, a more general cultivation. The wych elm, though a rare tree in some counties, seems more extensively spread over England than the other species, and adventures farther to the north. Ray tells us, on the authority of Aubrey, that the common elm, so called, is scarcely found indigenous northward of Lincolnshire, whereas this species is found even in Scotland. Our soil is very favorable to the growth of both species. The wych elm affords a tough and valuable wood for the wheeler and the mill-wright; the bark from the young limbs is stripped off in long ribands, and often used, especially in Wales, for securing thatch, and for various bindings and tyings, to which purpose its flexible and tough nature renders it well adapted. Gerard says, that arrows were made from the wood of this tree, and he lived at a period when he could well ascertain the fact, during the reign of Elizabeth and her predecessor, before fire-arms had superseded this truly British weapon: he was in the younger part of his life gardener to the great Lord Burleigh. That the wych elm, when permitted, will attain large dimensions, is manifest by the size of several we have observed in many places; but that gigantic one, which grew in Staffordshire, exceeds in magnitude any other of this species which we ever heard of. It required the labor of two men for five days to fell it; it was forty yards in length, with a diameter of seventeen feet at the but; yielding eight pair of naves, and eight thousand, six hundred, and sixty feet of boards, the sawing of which cost 10l. 17s. It contained ninety-seven tons of timber. As Evelyn says, “this was certainly a goodly tree!” The etymology of this tree seems to be unknown, and different authors, who mention it, spell it, accordingly, various ways: Evelyn calls it wich, and witch; Gilpin, wich; others, wych; Bacon, weech. The foliage of the young trees of this elm are the favorite food of the larvæ of the Buff-tip-moth, (Phal. Bucephala), for though they likewise feed upon the young leaves of the oak, and the lime, yet they give the preference to those of this tree; when so feeding, it will always be known by their rejectments on the earth beneath, which when the larvæ are in any number, may be noticed by very unattentive persons. This caterpillar, when nearly fed for its change, becomes heavy, and commonly falls to the earth from the spray, and we can see them crawling along the paths, or even upon the clothes of persons that have walked under the trees where they have fed: though this creature is very often found in considerable numbers throughout the summer and autumn, yet by reason of some fatality, the moth is by no means so common an insect as might be expected from the profusion of its larvæ.

We have no indigenous tree that suffers from the advance of the winter season so early as the wych elm. A few others may manifest its approach nearly as soon, but they become augmented in splendor by a touch of the frosty air, not ruined and denuded like our elm, which contributes no grandeur, no beauty, to our autumnal scenery, as its leaves curl up, become brown, and flutter from their sprays, when growing in exposed situations, as early often as the middle of September, by constitutional mechanism alone, even before the beech or the maple seems sensibly affected by the cold. This character of itself marks a difference from the common elm, which preserves its verdure, except from accidental causes, long after this period; and then, when its season arrives, the foliage becomes tinged with a fine, mellow, yellow hue, contributing a full share with other trees to the character and splendor of autumn. The wych elm may occasionally be desirable in the few days that our northern summer requires its deep shades, but will not otherwise afford pleasure or beauty in the shrubbery or the park as an ornamental tree, as its leafless sprays announce too early the unwelcome termination of our floral year, and its sober russet foliage is scattered at our feet without preparation or a parting smile.

Trees in full foliage have long been noted as great attractors of humidity, and a young wych elm in full leaf affords a good example of this supposed power; but in the winter of the year, when trees are perfectly denuded, this faculty of creating moisture about them is equally obvious, though not so profusely. A strongly marked instance of this was witnessed by me, when ascending a hill in the month of March. The weather had previously been very fine and dry, and the road in a dusty state; but a fog coming on, an ash tree hanging over the road was dripping with water so copiously, that the road beneath was in a puddle, when the other parts continued dry, and manifested no appearance of humidity. That leaves imbibe moisture by one set of vessels and discharge them by another, is well-known; but these imbibings are never discharged in falling drops: the real mystery was, the fog in its progress was impeded by the boughs of the tree, and gradually collected on the exposed side of them, until it became drops of water, whereas the surrounding country had only a mist flying over it. Thus in fact the tree was no attractor, but a condenser; the gate of a field will in the same manner run down with water on the one side, and be dry on the other; as will a stick, or a post, from the same cause. It is upon this principle that currents of air will be found under trees in summer, when little is perceived in open places; and the under leaves and sprays will be curled and scorched at times, when the parts above are uninjured. The air in its passage being stopped and condensed against the foliage of the tree, it accordingly descends along its surface or front, and escapes at the bottom, where there are no branches or leaves to interrupt its progress. In winter there is little to impede the breeze in its course, and it passes through; consequently at this season the air under a tree is scarcely more sensibly felt than in the adjoining field.

It may be observed, that in the spring of the year the herbage under trees is generally more vivid and luxuriant, than that which is beyond the spread of the branches: this may be occasioned, in some instances, by cattle having harbored there, and the ground becoming in consequence more manured; but it will be found likewise manifestly verdant and flourishing where no such accessory could have enriched it, and is, I apprehend, in general, chiefly owing to the effects of the driving fogs and mists, which cause a frequent drip beneath the tree, not experienced in other places, and thus in a manner keep up a perpetual irrigation and refreshment of the soil, and promote the decomposition of the foliage beneath, which being drawn into the earth by worms, contributes to the verdure by the nutriment they yield.

The foliage of trees and plants, by its amazing profusion, variety, and beauty, must ever have been, as it is now, a subject of admiration and delight, is perhaps full as deserving of notice, and at times even more to be regarded, than the blossoms which accompany it. Let us take only one yard square upon the first verdant ditch-bank in spring, and the variation of form and character which will there be presented may probably exceed general imagination; but the object of all this extraordinary diversity is concealed, with the many other mysteries of creation: yet we have such an ascendant thirst for information upon the causes and nature of the things about us, as to render it an apparent inherent principle of the mind, inducing it to gratitude and love. From information in all the works of Providence arises, as a necessary consequence, admiration, and an exalted sense of supreme intelligence and goodness. Without the desire of knowing the designs and processes of things, no investigation would be bestowed, and we should remain in ignorance of all but the bare facts, and gross perceptions of creation; nor can it be questioned but that the more extensive our acquaintance is with the objects of Providence, in such proportions must our convictions be of his justice, wisdom, and power.

The great utility of foliage, and its agency in accomplishing the requirements of the plant and its products, are well known; and we can form some comprehension of the vast supply that is required by a tree, when we view its foliage, each leaf being employed in receiving and transmitting gases from the air in certain proportions to the plant: these great operations having been effected during the summer months, and this agency of the leaves finished, they fall to the ground, not as a useless encumbrance, but to convey a large portion of fresh soil peculiarly fitted for the nutriment of vegetation. Should they remain in any quantity beneath the tree, they appear to be injurious to the smaller herbage, but they are more generally dispersed as they part from the sprays by the gales of autumn, which whirl them along in crowds to the hedges, trenches, and ditches around: here they accumulate and decay, furnishing, in conjunction with other vegetable decompositions, a very nutritive earth, as is manifest by the wild plants growing in those situations, for notwithstanding all the obstructions of shade, thorns, and briers, they are generally found in great luxuriance or health. This earth in time crumbled by frosts, and washed by rains into the ditches from the banks, becomes accumulated there, and we collect it, compost it with other matters, and use it as a beneficial dressing for our cultivated lands: many of these leaves, however, remain near the tree, and soon communicate their virtues to the herbage: some are consumed by natural consequences, others are attacked by small fungi, which break their surfaces, admit moisture, and facilitate decay; the worm now seizes them as his portion, and having fed upon a part, draws the remainder into the earth, where a rapid separation of the parts takes place, and they are received through the roots into vegetable circulation anew; and thus the beautiful foliage which has been so pleasing during our summer months, supplied the tree with sustenance to increase its magnitude, and all the requisites demanded by its fruits and products—has glowed perhaps with splendor, and been our admiration in the decline of the year, now returns to the soil, not to encumber it, but to administer health and vigor to a new series of vegetation, and circulate in combinations hidden from any human perception.

By a very wise appointment, peculiar propensities have been bestowed upon the vegetable world, greatly assimilating to the tastes and inclinations of the animated tribes. Beasts and insects feed on particular plants, and reject others, and the delight of one is disgusting to another. So, some plants, not having the power of locomotion, will thrive only in certain compounded soils, aspects, and situations, evincing a similar tendency to preference of nourishment as do the sensitive tribes; and some districts, that vary a little in their component parts or position from those adjoining, will present an individual or a race that is not found in another: the common product of the North or of the East is treasured in the Herbarium of the southern or western botanist; we can boast but few, yet we have some of these capricious children of the soil.

The fetid hellebore (helleborus fœtidus) is not a common plant with us, but we find it sparingly in one or two places; and though a plant indigenous to Britain, yet it is not improbable that it has strayed from cultivation, and become naturalized in many of the places in which we now find it. Its uses as an herb of celebrity for some complaints of cattle occasioned its being fostered in many a cottage garden long since erased, where the good wife was the simple doctress of the village, when perhaps mortality was not more extensive than in these days of greater pretension and display. Modern practice yet retains preparations of this herb, but it appears that, from the powerful manner in which they act, great discretion is necessary in their administration. This hellebore is one of our few plants that present us with a dull, unsightly, unpleasing blossom. We have many with a corolla so small as to be little noticed; but this plant, and the fetid iris (iris fœtidissima), produce blossoms, that would generally be considered as darksome and cheerless. There is no part of a vegetable which we usually admire more than its flowers, for that endless variety of colors, shades, forms, and odors, with which they are endowed; yet the utility of the blossom is by no means obvious. Linnæus calls the corolla the arras, the tapestry of the plant; and we are perfectly sensible that the blossom in very many instances is essential in various ways to securing and perfecting the germen; that it often contains the food of multitudes of insects, which feed on the pollen, the honey, or the germen; and that the odor emitted by it leads frequently various creatures to the object in request, and by their agency the fecundation and perfecting of the seeds are often effected: but we are astonished at the elaborate mechanism and splendor of some species, and see the whole race of creation, with the exception of man, utterly regardless of them. Butterflies and other insects will bask on expanded flowers, and frequent their disks, but it is in wantonness, or to feed on the sweet liquors they contain. The carpenter bee, that every summer cuts its little circular patches in such quantities from my roses to line its nest in the old garden door, selects the green leaves only, chiefly from the China, Provence, and damask kinds, passing over the petals of their blossoms as useless. That splendid insect the rose-beetle (cetonia aurata), that beds and bathes in sweetness, will partially eat the flowers of some species of roses, and “lap the nectar they produce;” and a few others nibble a little; but the liliaceous tribes, and other glorious flowers, as far as we know, furnish to insects no supply, but expand, wither, and die, unnoticed but by the eye of man alone. Flowers that are grand, gay, cheerful or beautiful, predominate infinitely over those that are of a sombre hue or gloomy aspect. Employment and occupation were as much the design, as they are found to be essential to the happiness of human life: we are not all constituted to soar in the higher regions of scientific research; our dispositions are as various as our intellects. Horticulture was the first occupation instituted for man, and he cannot pursue a more innocent and harmless employ: we were given “every herb, and every tree upon the face of the earth.” For food, or raiment, the immediate necessities of man, a very few of them are applicable; but we can collect them for amusement, in admiration of their beauty. Without this beauty, they would be no object of research; and man, who is exclusively sensible of its existence, can alone find pleasure in viewing it. The mind that is delighted with such admiration, must be almost insensibly led to an attendant pleasure, the contemplation, the perception of infinite wisdom and power, manifested in the adornment, splendor, and formation, of even the simplest flower of the field. I would not arrogate for man an exclusive right, or make him generally the sole consideration of the beneficence of Providence; but there are influences, which his reason can alone perceive, incitements to good thoughts and worthy actions.

Flowers, in all ages, have been made the representatives of innocence and purity. We decorate the bride, and strew her path with flowers: we present the undefiled blossoms, as a similitude of her beauty and untainted mind; trusting that her destiny through life will be like theirs, grateful and pleasing to all. We scatter them over the shell, the bier, and the earth, when we consign our mortal blossoms to the dust, as emblems of transient joy, fading pleasures, withered hopes; yet rest in sure and certain trust that each in due season will be renewed again. All the writers of antiquity make mention of their uses and application in heathen and pagan ceremonies, whether of the temple, the banquet, or the tomb—the rites, the pleasures, or the sorrows of man; and in concord with the usages of the period, the author of the “Book of Wisdom” says, “Let us crown ourselves with rose-buds and flowers before they wither.” All orders of creation, “every form of creeping things and abominable beasts,” have been, perhaps, at one time or another, by some nation or sect, either the objects of direct worship, or emblems of an invisible sanctity; but though individuals of the vegetable world may have veiled the mysteries, and been rendered sacred to particular deities and purposes, yet in very few instances, we believe, were they made the representatives of a deified object, or been bowed down to with divine honors. The worship of the one true Being could never have been polluted by any symbol suggested by the open flowers and lily-work of the temple.

The love of flowers seems a naturally implanted passion, without any alloy or debasing object as a motive: the cottage has its pink, its rose, its polyanthus; the villa, its geranium, its dahlia, and its clematis: we cherish them in youth, we admire them in declining days; but, perhaps, it is the early flowers of spring that always bring with them the greatest degree of pleasure, and our affections seem immediately to expand at the sight of the first opening blossom under the sunny wall, or sheltered bank, however humble its race may be. In the long and sombre months of winter our love of nature, like the buds of vegetation, seems closed and torpid; but, like them, it unfolds and reanimates with the opening year, and we welcome our long-lost associates with a cordiality, that no other season can excite, as friends in a foreign clime. The violet of autumn is greeted with none of the love with which we hail the violet of spring; it is unseasonable, perhaps it brings with it rather a thought of melancholy than of joy; we view it with curiosity, not affection: and thus the late is not like the early rose. It is not intrinsic beauty or splendor that so charms us, for the fair maids of spring cannot compete with the grander matrons of the advanced year; they would be unheeded, perhaps lost, in the rosy bowers of summer and of autumn; no, it is our first meeting with a long- lost friend, the reviving glow of a natural affection, that so warms us at this season: to maturity they give pleasure, as a harbinger of the renewal of life, a signal of awakening nature, or of a higher promise; to youth, they are expanding being, opening years, hilarity and joy; and the child, let loose from the house, riots in the flowery mead, and is

“Monarch of all he surveys.”

There is not a prettier emblem of spring than an infant sporting in the sunny field, with its osier basket wreathed with butter-cups, orchises, and daisies. With summer flowers we seem to live as with our neighbors, in harmony and good-will: but spring flowers are cherished as private friendships.

The amusements and fancies of children, when connected with flowers, are always pleasing, being generally the conceptions of innocent minds unbiassed by artifice or pretence; and their love of them seems to spring from a genuine feeling and admiration, a kind of sympathy with objects as fair as their own untainted minds: and I think that it is early flowers which constitute their first natural playthings; though summer presents a greater number and variety, they are not so fondly selected. We have our daisies strung and wreathed about our dress; our coronals of orchises and primroses; our cowslip balls, &c.; and one application of flowers at this season I have noticed, which, though perhaps it is local, yet it has a remarkably pretty effect, forming for the time one of the gayest little shrubs that can be seen. A small branch or long spray of the white thorn, with all its spines uninjured, is selected; and on these its alternate thorns, a white and a blue violet, plucked from their stalks, are stuck upright in succession, until the thorns are covered, and when placed in a flower-pot of moss, has perfectly the appearance of a beautiful vernal flowering dwarf shrub, and as long as it remains fresh is an object of surprise and delight.

No portion of creation has been resorted to by mankind with more success for the ornament and decoration of their labors than the vegetable world. The rites, emblems, and mysteries of religion; national achievements, eccentric masks, and the capricious visions of fancy, have all been wrought by the hand of the sculptor, on the temple, the altar, or the tomb; but plants, their foliage, flowers, or fruits, as the most graceful, varied, and pleasing objects that meet our view, have been more universally the object of design, and have supplied the most beautiful, and perhaps the earliest, embellishments of art. The pomegranate, the almond, and flowers, were selected, even in the wilderness, by divine appointment, to give form to the sacred utensils; the rewards of merit, the wreath of the victor, were arboraceous; in later periods, the acanthus, the ivy, the lotus, the vine, the palm, and the oak, flourished under the chisel, or in the loom of the artist; and in modern days, the vegetable world affords the almost exclusive decorations of ingenuity and art. The cultivation of flowers is of all the amusements of mankind the one to be selected and approved as the most innocent in itself, and most perfectly devoid of injury or annoyance to others; the employment is not only conducive to health and peace of mind, but probably more good-will has arisen, and friendships been founded by the intercourse and communication connected with this pursuit than from any other whatsoever: the pleasures, the ecstasies of the horticulturist are harmless and pure; a streak, a tint, a shade, becomes his triumph, which though often obtained by chance, are secured alone by morning care, by evening caution, and the vigilance of days: an employ which, in its various grades, excludes neither the opulent nor the indigent, and teeming with boundless variety, affords an unceasing excitement to emulation without contempt or ill-will.

The bouquet may be an exile now; but the revolutions of fashion will surely return this beautiful ornament to favor again. With us the nosegay yet retains its station as a decoration to our Sunday beaux; but at our spring clubs and associations it becomes an essential, indispensable appointment; a little of the spirit of rivalry seeming to animate our youths in the choice and magnitude of this adornment. The superb spike of a Brompton, or a ten weeks’ stock, long cherished in some sheltered corner for the occasion, surrounded by all the gaiety the garden can afford, till it presents a very bush of flowers, forms the appendage of their bosoms, and, with the gay knots in their hats, their best garments, and the sprightly hilarity of their looks, constitutes a pleasing village scene, and gives an hour of unencumbered felicity to common man and rural life, not yet disturbed by refinement and taste.

“Oh, who can hold a fire in his hand By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?”

And yet the shivering of the aspen, or poplar tree (populus tremula), in the breeze will give us the sensation of coldness, and communicate an involuntary shuddering. The construction of the foliage of this tree is peculiarly adapted for motion: a broad leaf placed upon a long footstalk, so flexile, as scarcely to be able to support the leaf in an upright posture: the upper part of this stalk, on which the play or action seems mainly to depend, is contrary to the nature of footstalks in general, being perfectly flattened, and, as an eminent botanist and esteemed gentleman, Dr. I. Stokes, observes, is placed at a right angle with the leaf, being thus peculiarly fitted to receive the impulse of every wind that blows. This stalk is furnished with three strong nerves, placed parallel, and acting in unison with each other; but towards the base the stalk becomes round, and then the nerves assume a triangular form, and constitute three distinct supports and counteractions to each other’s motions. I know no petiole with a similar conformation, or better calculated for the vibration of a leaf. The leaf-stalks of plants are very curious constructions; and the nerves and vessels contained in them, which are the vehicles of a large portion of that nourishment which plants receive through their foliage from the air, seem in general differently placed, and fitted for variety of operation. The poplar is a tree that occasions at times a great deal of trouble in our pasture lands, by the tendency which it has to extend its roots, and throw out suckers. Three or four of this species in a hedge-row, bounding a meadow in my occupation, oblige me every year that the field is mowed, by their prolificacy, to send a man with his stock-ax to remove their numerous offspringing; a mere temporary expedient, tending rather to increase the complaint, as eradication by trenching with the spade can alone effectually check the encroachments of runners so tenacious of life, and rapid in growth.

The dyer’s broom (genista tinctoria) abounds with us, and becomes a perfect encumbrance in our clay-land pastures. It is seldom eaten by cattle, except in cases of great necessity, and remains untouched, if other food be obtainable, giving a deceitful appearance of verdure to a naked pasture. It yet retains a place in some of our dispensatories; but its medicinal virtues are probably never made trial of in modern practice, the lenient assuasives of our forefathers seeming unequal to contention with the constitutions of these days. I know not any use to which it is applicable but for the dyer. Our poorer people a few years ago used to collect it by cartloads, about the month of July; and the season of “woodwaxen” was a little harvest to them: but it interfered greatly with our haymaking. Women could gain each about two shillings a day, clear of all expenses, by gathering it; but they complained that it was a very hard and laborious occupation, the plant being drawn up by the roots, which are strongly interwoven in the soil. The dyer gave them eight-pence for a hundred weight; but I fear the amount was greatly enhanced by the dishonest practice of watering the load, for the specious purpose of keeping it green; and the old woodwaxers tell me, that, without the increase of weight which the water gave the article, they should have had but little reward for their labor. Greediness here, however, as in most other cases, ruined the trade, the plant becoming so injured and stinted by repeated pullings, as to be in these parts no longer an object worth seeking for; and our farmers rather discountenance the custom, as the “green-weed” preserves and shelters at its roots a considerable quantity of coarse herbage, which in the winter and spring months is of great importance to the young cattle browsing in the pastures. The use of this dyer’s broom is to prepare woollen cloths for the reception of another color. It communicates to the article a dull yellow, which will then, by being dipped in another liquor or composition, according to the shade required, receive a green hue. Vegetable filaments, cotton, flax, &c., are very differently formed from those threads afforded by animals, as silk and wool, and are differently disposed to receive colors. The dye that will give a fine color to the one, is perhaps rejected by the other; and this plant is rarely or never used by the dyer for cotton articles. That certain natural productions receive and retain, and others reject or soon part with artificial colorings, are in some cases in consequence of the nature of the substance, and in others by reason of the conformation of the fibre; but any examination of this kind would only occasion a tedious discussion and remain very obscure at last. We find certain effects produced and reason upon them, but so small are the parts operated upon, minute the agents, and equivocal the connexion, that we can do little more than theorize upon the subject; but perhaps I may slightly instance the difference existing in the fibre of flax and silk. The parts which compose the filaments of the former are generally considered as being flat and flaky, whereas those of the latter are tubular and round: this conformation renders silk so soft to the touch, and refracting more perfectly the rays of light, occasions much of its lustre, and the brilliancy of its hues. Perhaps we have no art or trade less confined within the trammels of formulæ than that of the dyer; every professor appearing to have his own methods of acquiring particular tints and shades, guided often in his proportions by that mutable sense, the taste, and regulating the temperature of his compositions, not by the thermometer, but by the feeling of the hand;—and so capricious are these tests, so different the sensations of the operator, or the variable influences of solar light, that success on one day does not insure a similar result on another.

Color is probably only reflected light; but by what means the absorption of oxygen increases the lustre is not quite obvious—yet the power of the sun’s rays, in augmenting the intensity of the hues of many things, is well known: there is an admirable green color for foliage, to be obtained by the union of the light Prussian blue with the dark gamboge; but I could never acquire this clear and lustrous, without compounding it in the light of the sun. As the young artist will find this a most useful pigment, I may in addition say, that a small bit of the light Prussian, with three or four times the quantity of gamboge, must be laid upon the pallet, or in the saucer, and with a drop or two of water, only enough to make it work easily, be most thoroughly united and incorporated by the finger, with the sun shining upon the mixture, adding more gamboge repeatedly during the operation, until the blue is subdued and a clear green produced; but if a tedious operation, yet perseverance will ultimately produce a very brilliant permanent green.

We have our walls in many places here decorated with most of the varieties of the great snapdragon (antirrhinum majus); the white, the pink, and the common: and that beautiful deviation, with a white tube and crimson termination, is slowly wandering from the garden, and mixing with its congeners. It has not, perhaps, been generally observed, that the flowers of this plant, “bull-dogs,” as the boys call them, are perfect insect traps; multitudes of small creatures seek an entrance into the corolla through the closed lips, which upon a slight pressure yield a passage, attracted by the sweet liquor that is found at the base of the germen; but when so admitted, there is no return, the lips are closed, and all advance to them is impeded by a dense thicket of woolly matter, which invests the mouth of the lower jaw—

“Smooth lies the road to Pluto’s gloomy shade; But ’tis a long, unconquerable pain, To climb to these ethereal realms again.”

But this snapdragon is more merciful than most of our insect traps. The creature receives no injury when in confinement; but, having consumed the nectareous liquor, and finding no egress, breaks from its dungeon by gnawing a hole at the base of the tube, and returns to liberty and light. The extraordinary manner in which the corolla of this plant is formed, the elastic force with which the lower limb closes and fits upon the projection of the upper, manifest the obvious design in the great Architect, “whose hands bended the rainbow;” and the insects are probably the destined agents whereby the germen is impregnated, for as soon as this is effected, the limbs become flaccid, lose their elasticity, are no longer a place of confinement, but open for the escape of any thing that might have entered. The little black pismire is a common plunderer of this honey.