Part 7

In such scenery, if it be natural, there is no vulgarity and no faultiness of design. With all the variety there is still a fitness in form, color, and expression. It is rough, but pure in taste. For instance, the pine groves on the mountain ridges are not sharply defined in their margins and thus separated from the rest of the forest, but they gradually merge with the neighboring trees in a way that was naturally foreshadowed in the conformation of the land and the composition of the soil.

A feature so natural and self-evident may hardly appear worthy of notice; but its value is appreciated as soon as we compare the outlines referred to with the rigid forms of some of the artificial forests of Europe. Those who have seen the checkered forests of Germany, where the design of the planted strip of trees, like a patch upon the mountain, is unmistakable, will readily note the contrast between the natural and the artificial type. Neither is there any striving for effect in the natural forest, an error not uncommon in the tree groupings of parks or private estates. In these an effort is sometimes made to produce an impression by contrasts in form and color, but too often the outcome is mere conspicuousness; while nature, in some subtle way, has touched the true chord.

Forest scenery, however, need not be as extensive as this in order to add appreciably to the beauty of landscape. In the valley of southern Virginia, among the peach orchards and sheep farms, low hills lie scattered on both sides of the valley road. The mountain ranges beyond them recede to a great distance, and are partly hidden from view by these intervening hills. The latter, however, are decked with bits of woodland: groves of oak, chestnut, and beech, where the horseman on sunny summer days finds a welcome coolness and shade. Would these sylvan spots be missed if they were to be removed? They now exercise a beneficial influence on the drainage and moisture conditions of the surrounding farmlands, and they supply some of the home wants of the farmers. But they have an esthetic value also. They are usually in neat and healthy condition, and, viewed either from within or without, they are balm to the eyes as they lie scattered promiscuously over the hills.

It is hardly two hundred miles by road from that region to the high mountains of the North Carolina and Tennessee border, where we find broadleaf forests of the wildest and roughest kind. These happily still possess the great charm of undisturbed nature. The small mountain towns lie scattered far apart. The region is even bleak and dreary—at least until the summer comes; but when everything turns green the season is glorious. As we ride through these woods we realize the majesty of their stillness and strength, and cannot help admiring the great oaks and chestnuts that contend for the ground, succumbing only after centuries in the strife.

While the broadleaf forests of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee are characterized principally by grandeur, this is not commonly a pronounced trait of the leafy forests. Rather are they distinguished for a certain air of cheerfulness, the expression of which will vary in different localities; but in some way it will manifest itself almost everywhere. Thus, in the southern half of New England woodland scenery is marked by a peculiar expression of quiet gladness. Whether it be in small farm woods among low hills, or in continuous forest, as in the Berkshires, there is the same happy choice in bright and cheerful trees: maples, birches, elms, and others; some bright with early spring blossoms, some adding to the variety of color by their bark or shining leaves, others agile of leaf and bough in the frequent breezes. Here we find an abundance of oaks, trees whose fresh, glossy leaves seem to be specially well fitted to purify the air, for there is a distinct and refreshing odor in oak forests. We find an ample choice of tender, springy plants among the moist rocks. These smaller woods, too, are the favored haunts of the songbirds, for here they find the glint of sunshine that they so much delight in.

A similar warmth of expression belongs to the leafy woods of other regions. If we compare New England with Pennsylvania, we shall find that the broadleaf forests of the latter are denser and more continuous, while they are at the same time richer in the variety of trees, shrubs, and other forms of embellishment, which find here a milder air and a richer soil. Springtime is more luxuriant and replete with happy surprise and change. But while these forests are perhaps more elaborate than those of southern New England, I cannot say that they impress me as being so homelike and engaging.

Along the Gulf and in Florida the dank forests of the swamps and river bottoms, finding all the conditions favorable to a luxuriant vegetation, are characterized by extraordinary complexity of growth. Perhaps we enter some secluded patch of virgin forest, and sit down for a while in its dense shade, impressed by the strangeness and solitude of the place. Our curiosity is aroused by the multifarious assemblage of trees, vines, and shrubbery, and we wonder how many ages it has been thus, and how far back some of the oldest trees may date in their history. But they seem rather to have no age at all; only to be linked in some mysterious way with the dim past out of which they have arisen.

A mighty live oak leans across the scene, moist and green with moss; another is noticed farther away among slender palmettos, whose spear-edged leaves catch the sunlight. Vines and climbers hang about the stems or droop lazily from the boughs. In the nearby sluggish water, where the soil is deep and moldy, stands a sweet gum with curiously chiseled bark, as if some patient artist had been at work; and a little beyond, some cypresses are roofed by the delicate web of their own foliage.

We may sit dreaming away a full hour thus, with only the hum of a few insects and perhaps a stray scarlet tanager flitting by to disturb our meditations.

It has been indicated in a former chapter that the broadleaf woods, taken as a whole, are decidedly richer in shrubs and small plants than the evergreen or coniferous forests. This adventitious source of beauty has much to do with their general character, because the gay show of blossom and fruit, bright stem, and diverse habits of growth of these lesser plants, contributes appreciably to the liveliness of sylvan scenery. But the effect derived from the blossoms and fruits of many of the trees themselves should not be overlooked. In this respect the broadleaf trees are superior to the evergreens. The poplars and willows ripen their woolly and silvery tassels when the snow has scarcely disappeared. The bright tufts of the red maple, the little yellow flowers of the sassafras, the snowy white ones of the serviceberry and flowering dogwood, the latter’s red berries in fall, the brilliant fruit of the mountain ash, the perfect flowers of the magnolias, the heavily clustered locusts, honey locusts, and black cherries, and the basswoods with fragrant little creamy flowers, alike do their part in lending character to the forest wherever they may have their range.

Then, in addition to the beauty that appeals to us through the outward senses, there is a quality in the forests that is dear to us through an inward sense. It is the influence of a temperament that seems to belong to the place itself: the pure and health-giving atmosphere, the quiet and rest that binds up the wounded spirit and brings peace to the troubled mind.

We leave the turmoil of the city and the thousand little cares of daily life and seek refuge for a while in sylvan retreats, in some pleasant leafy forest with murmuring water and sunbeams; and presently the ruffled concerns of yesterday are smoothed away and the forest, like sleep, “knits up the raveled sleeve of care.”

In the woods there is harmony in all things; all things are subordinated to one purpose and desire: that the best may be made out of life, however small the means. There is a kind of honesty and truth here, and a self-sufficiency in everything. Shakspere says, in the words of Duke Senior, who stands surrounded by his followers in the Forest of Arden (“As You Like it,” act ii, scene 1):—

Are not these woods More free from peril than the envious court? Here feel we but the penalty of Adam, The seasons’ difference; as, the icy fang And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind, Which, when it bites and blows upon my body, Even till I shrink with cold, I smile, and say, “This is no flattery: these are counselors That feelingly persuade me what I am.”

* * * * *

And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

THE CONIFEROUS FORESTS

It has already been said (page 31) that the evergreen or coniferous forests differ from those described in the foregoing chapter by a denser community of growth and by their frequent occurrence as “pure” forests. Their gregariousness makes it proper to apply such expressions as the “pine forests of Michigan” and the “spruce forests of Maine.” It will be seen presently that these special characteristics are esthetically important. Moreover, it is a fact that they borrow much grandeur and beauty from the atmospheric conditions of their environment, which, if we except certain large tracts of pine forests, is commonly placed among mountains and at considerable elevations above the sea. To these several sources must be ascribed many of the qualities that have invested the evergreen forests with a peculiar magnificence and beauty.

The reader may be surprised at the statement that coniferous forests are distinguished for a “dense community of growth,” for it must have been noticed that many of our Rocky Mountain forests do not bear evidence of this fact. And yet it is true that the typical habit, so to speak, of the conifers is a close huddling together of individuals. It is shown in the massive red fir forests of western Washington and the redwoods of California, which are probably the densest and heaviest in the world; in the crowded Engelmann spruce and alpine fir groves common to certain soils and situations in Colorado; and in the dense tracts of lodgepole pine scattered throughout the mountains of the West. In the East the same tendency is illustrated by the better sections of the Adirondack spruce forests and the splendid pineries that once covered the Great Lake region. If we call to mind these extensive examples, we realize how the conifers ever strive to build a dense and impenetrable forest. That they are capable of a like growth in other parts of the world also, will be attested by those who have seen the spruce and fir forests of Germany and France.

While the regions that have just been mentioned exhibit the health and vigor of coniferous forests under favorable natural conditions, there are certain portions of the Rocky Mountains where the climate is too dry and the topography and soil are too austere and rocky to suit even that hardy class of trees. So here, under circumstances that may almost be pronounced abnormal for forest growth, the evergreens fight a harder battle, while the broadleaf trees, with the exception of the poplar tribe, are scarce indeed. We must, therefore, turn to the more typical coniferous forests that have enjoyed at least a fair share of nature’s gifts—whether it be within the range of the Rocky Mountains or elsewhere—to understand those peculiar qualities that are connected with their surroundings or their characteristic habits of growth.

One of the commonest attributes of such forests is their grandeur; partly inherent and in part also derived from the sublimity of their surroundings. Their situation is often in the midst of wild and picturesque mountain scenery, where they find a proper setting for their own majestic forms among crags and precipices and on the great shoulders of mountains; where powerful winds and severe snows test their endurance and strength. It is here that we chiefly find those awe-inspiring distant views that harmonize so well with the evergreen forests. The trees spread over the mountains for miles and miles in closely fledged masses, and become more impressive with distance as the color changes from a continuity of dark green to shades of blue and soft, distant purple. In form and color the trees blend together and seem to move up the dangerous slopes and difficult passes in mighty multitudes.

Contributing to the same impression of grandeur, we have the possibility in these lofty regions of certain glorious effects in sunlight and shade. At sunrise the first rays flash on the pointed tops of the uppermost trees, and with the advancing hours descend the dark slopes on their golden errand. Meanwhile the western sides lie in shadow. At noon a soft haze spreads through the valleys, and in the twilight hours the intense depth of purple in the distant ranges, where stratus clouds catch the last rays of the sun, obscures the contours of the forests and makes them even more sublime. This, too, were not possible without great mass and uniformity of aspect.

The interchange between lights and shadows cast by the moving clouds is nowhere so effectively exhibited as in higher altitudes and over the surfaces of evergreen forests. A wide expanse enables us to follow with our eyes the interesting chase of the cloud shadows, as they fly up the slopes, the steeper the faster, and glide noiselessly but swiftly over outstretched areas of endless green. The clouds seem to move faster over mountain ranges, as a rule, than they do over the low valleys. Or is it only because now we see them nearer by and can gage the rapidity of their flight?

Suppose, instead of a restless day, it should be calm, with cloud masses heaped in the sky and the sun sinking low. There has been a loose snowfall in the afternoon, and every twig, branch, and spray hangs muffled in snow. The rocks are capped with a light cover and ribbed with snowy lines along their sides. The air is pure and breathless. The disappearing sun sends back a rosy light to the canopy of clouds overhead, and the reflection falls upon masses of frosted, whitened evergreens, lending them a breath of color that deepens as the sun sinks lower still; and the rays enter the openings of the hills and flood the opposite slopes, till they glow with a fiery red.

Thus the grandeur of these forests may be due to expanse and volume, depth of color, sunlight and shade, or to effects borrowed from the clouds. Finally, we notice another kind of grandeur when coniferous forests are visited by storms. First comes the moaning of the wind, mysterious and unsearchable, and different from the roar and rush that sweeps through the broadleaf woods. Then follows the uneasy communication from tree to tree, a trembling that spreads from section to section. When the rush of the wind finally strikes the tall, straight forms they do not sway their arms about as wildly as do the maples, elms, or tulip trees, but bend and sway throughout their length and rock majestically.

Not in outward aspect alone are these forests noble and stately. A nobleness lies in the nature of the living trees themselves; for, though we may call them unconscious, it is life still, and they are expressive with meaning. Far simpler in their habits and requirements than the broadleaf trees, they are, nevertheless, more generous to man. Endurance and hardship is their lot, but noble form of trunk and crown and useful soft wood are the products of their life. There is no forest mantle like theirs to shield from the blast, especially when it is formed of young thickets of the simple but refined spruces and firs. When, at the last, they yield their life to man, it seems to me there is something exalted even in the manner of their fall. The tree hardly quivers under the blows of the ax; a mere trembling in the outermost twigs, and then, hardly as if cut off from the source of life, the tall, straight form sinks slowly to the earth.

Another common attribute of evergreen forests is their characteristic silence. Birds do not frequent them as much as the leafy forests. In these solitudes, far removed from village and farm, there is often no sound but the ring of the distant ax and the sough of the wind. In winter, as we push through the thickets of small spruces or hemlocks, or stand for a while beneath lofty pines, while all around is muffled in snow, the silence seems sanctified and vaster than elsewhere.

In addition to their grandeur and sublimity, and their silence, they are distinguished for an element of softness. This is seen in the delicate texture and pure color of their foliage, the effect of which is heightened by being massed in the dense forest. We have already noticed the mild olive shade of the eastern white pine. When the wind blows through it, it seems as if the foliage were melting away. It would be difficult, also, to match the green color of the red fir, especially as it looks in winter; or the luxuriant bluish-gray of the western blue spruce.