AM AP NG AE fl NO O07 Bat Eee ' . { fa .. ; | 4 i , P | | ere, 4 . 5 res i : * ; / : ee bap ' : 7 \ 7 P| a ) F b 6 | cs 4 | : | (71 & i ai f rat aie Pa RR ae ‘Foe Y : Agr a ca rs re ae oo i ples ot | Pi OR LO 1911 € Tilia MM SHELF No. ONTARIO AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE LIBRARY. eet oe ECT Wo) os 1905... Getting Acquainted with the Crees = 1.2 ss Setting Acquainted with the Crees BY J. HORACE McFARLAND Illustrated from Photographs by the Author NEW YORK THE OUTLOOK COMPANY 1904 Copyright, 1904 By The Outlook Company Published April, 1904 Wount Pleasant {Press J. Horace McFarland Company Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Foreword HESE sketches are, I fear, very unscien- tific and unsystematies, They record the : growth of, my own interest and informa- tion, as I have ‘recently observed and enjoyed the trees among which I had walked unsee- ing far too/many years. To pass on, as well asp cafy»some of the benefit that ve come into my own life from this\.wakened interest i. the trees provided by the Creator for the ae vesting of tired brains and the healing of ruf- fled spirits, as well as for utility, is the reason for gathering together and.. somewhat ,extend- ing the papers that have, brought me, / as they have appeared in the pages. of. “The, ‘Outlook, “ so many letters of fellowship and. apprecia- tion from others who have often. seen more clearly and deeply into the woods. than I may hope to. Driven out from my desk by weariness some- times—and as often, I confess, by a rasped tem- (v) FOREWORD per I would fain hide from display—I have never failed to find rest, and peace, and much to see and to love, among the common and familiar trees, to which I hope these mere hints of some of their features not always seen may send others who also need their silent and beneficent message. J. H. Mee: March 17, 1904 (vi) Contents RY OF SoME MapLes TP-OF THE OAK - as PAGE \ - List. of Pllustrations _ “American elm in winter (tint) . . =. — Front cover European™beech (tint). . ©. . . Title-page Cluster of Japanese™persimmons (tint) . . Foreword Old White Pines. (tint) 3 2 : . Contents page Flowers of American~elm (tint) 2 Opis pager ~ Leaves and samaras of Norway maple (tint) ‘Leaves and samaras of. silver maple (tint) F oC “Silver maple flowers aes \ - Young leaves of the red maple s “The Norway maple breaks into a Sra H Ll Hapia? Samaras of the.sugar maple Amature syeamore maple Sycamore maple blossoms “Flowers of the ash-leaved maple Ash-leaved maples in bloom Striped maple : Flowers of the chestnut bak (tint) . Leaves and acorns of the pin-oak (tint) The swamp white oak in winter Flowers of the pin-oak The swamp white oak in early spring . An old post-oak ‘ ; A blooming twig of the swamp Bai oak . Acorns of the English oak Cones of the Norway spruce (tint) Cones of the pitch pine (tint) . (1x) PAGE LIST Of TLLCS?T RATIOS PAGE A lone pine on the Indian river, = \icc> 2) 9) Hemlock Hill, Arnold Arboretum .. »» ae Fountain-like effect of the young long- ened pines :| oe The long-leaved pines of the South . . |. °. See An avenue of white pines + jp ih aka oe oy) Cones of the white spruce ; .- ¢ =) Fruit-cluster of the crab-apple faa) - «ott a Cluster of Winesap apples (tint) - ) «lw An apple orchard in winter . .° . . . 3 When the apple trees blossom + « | The Spectabilis crab in bloom - 2.) 5)! Fruits of the wild crab... St ae The beauty of a fruiting apple beach, : . oy Bloom of double-flowering apple . . .. . «a Flowers of -Carolina poplar (tint): . . + 4s) =aeueen Pussy-willows: (tint) / <3 . so. 4%) 9 A weeping willow in early spring . .. . i Aa The weeping willow in a storm . . ; |. =e A pussy-willow in a park are Blooms of the white willow . . . . . .« 3G@8;eng0 A white willow in a characteristic position . 3° Clump of young white willows -. » «a ne White poplars in spring-time . 2 Nod is . Carolina poplar as a street tree , : ; F ; . aes Winter aspect of the cottonwood . : , : ; ..- 126 Lombardy poplar .. : 2 ) 1) ee Leaves and seed-pods of the limmees lin (tint) . ; +s, Tulip flowers (tint) -.. .« «> » .; = eee A mature American elm ... . “ae The delicate tracery of the Pieters ae in wiflter .. ge Flowers of the spice-bush hats, Bore te hea! Leaves and berries of the American holly BN ively | NL 2k Mmerican holly tree at? Prenton + -. 9. . .' «| 196 Mimers.or che degwoou .) 6 Se ol i a Teg The red-bud in bloom i PRA Guba et camer leek a Blooms of the shad-bush ae rere palate) Pe 200 Miewers of the JAmeérican linden =~ : 3 =. . ©. °207 Mpcleimenican linden. “i; 92. or 7 2 My ar 2). [269 Pierwers of, the black: lopust, Ss. 97.5 82> fF) 8s. be aT Seeune trees of the black locwst "205 3 212 Sneosveainore, or butten=balliy— 0-2.) oe. 2 Bs Button-balls—fruit of the sycamore Ak ob, A ok aie Cem I The liquidambar .. Sag oles! Wi Aiey £265 The leaves and fruit of me anderen ; : i p32, Milieapapaw finoloony =. rs sso et a oe = 26 Flowers of the papaw need vas ees Bh cab BB Be 0 Uy Pbiie persimmon treesin fruiting time ,. .- . - «. 231 enricscotitnc spice-busit ..)' 4 ~£) “sefoer esl 4 ae B34 (x1) - % g j A Story of Some > f Maples NHIS is not a botanical disquisition ; it is not a complete/account of all the. members of the important tree familysof maples. I am not a“botanist, nor a true scientific observer, but only aeplain tree-lover, and I have been watch- ing’ some “trees~bloom and bud and grow and ‘fruit for a few/years, using a camera now and then, to record what I\see—and much more ‘than I see, usually! ; “\ In the sweet springtime, when the rising of if f the sap incites some to poetry, some to making maple sugar, and some to watching for the first flowers, it is well to look at a few tree- blooms, and to consider the possibilities and the pleas- ures of a peaceful hunt that can be made with profit in city street or park, as well as along country roadsides and in the meadows and the woods. Who does not know of the maples that are 3 GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES all around us? Yet who has seen the common- est of them bloom in very early spring, or watched the course of the peculiar winged seed- “= ~ Kapa "\% . Po Silver maple flowers “we pods or “keys” that follow the flowers? The white or “silver” maple of streets or roadsides, the soft maple of the woods, is one of the most familiar of American trees. Its rapid and vigorous growth endears it to the man who is in a hurry for shade, and its sturdy limbs are the joy of the tree-butcher who “trims” them short im) Sieger years. Watch this maple in very early spring—even before spring is any more than a calem@ar probability—and a singular bloom will be found along the slender twigs. Lake little loose- haired brushes these flowers are, coming often bravely in sleet and snow, and seemingly able to “set” and fertilize regardless of the weather. They hurry through the bloom-time, as they 4 h ZoshOny OF SOME MAPLES must do to carry out the life-round, for the graceful two-winged seeds that follow them are picked up and whirled about by April winds, and, if they lodge in the warming earth, are fully able to grow into fine little trees the same season. Examine these seed-pods, keys, or samaras (this last is a scientific name with such euphony to it that it might well become com- mon!), and notice the delicate veining in the translucent wings. See the graceful lines of the whole thing, and realize what an abundant pro- vision Dame Nature makes for reproduction,— for a moderate-sized tree completes many thousands of these finely formed, greenish yellow, winged samaras, and casts them loose for the wind to distribute during enough days to secure the best chances of the season. This same silver maple is a bone of contention among tree-men, at times. Some will tell you it is) “coarse”; and so it is when planted in an improper place upon a narrow street, allowed to flourish unrestrained for years, and then ruthlessly cropped off toa headless trunk! But set it on a broad lawn, or upon a roadside with generous room, and its noble stature and grace need yield 5 GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES nothing to the most artistic elm of New Eng- land. And in the deep woods it sometimes reaches a majesty and a dignity that compel ad- miration. The great maple at Eagles Mere is the king of the bit of primeval forest yet re- maining to that mountain rest spot. It towers high over mature hemlocks and beeches, and seems well able to defy future centuries. But there is another very early maple to watch for, and it is one widely distributed in the East- ern States. The red or scarlet maple is well named, for its flowers, not any more conspicu- ous in form than those of its close relation, the silver maple, are usually bright red or yellow, and they give a joyous color note in the very be- ginning of spring’s overture. Not long are these flowers with us; they fade, only to be quickly succeeded by even more brilliant samaras, a little more delicate and refined than those of the silver maple, as well as of the richest and warmest hue. Particularly in New England does this maple provide a notable spring color showing. The leaves of the red maple—it is also the swamp maple of some localities—as they open to the coaxing of April sun and April showers, 6 Young leaves of the red maple GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES have a special charm. They are properly red, but mingled with the characteristic color is a whole palette of tints of soft yellow, bronze and apricot. As the little baby leaflets open, they are shiny and crinkly, and altogether attractive. One thinks of the more aristocratic and dwarfed Japanese maples, in looking at the opening of these red-brown beauties, and it is no pleasure to see them smooth out into sedate greenness. Again, in fall, a glory of color comes to the leaves of the red maple; for they illumine the countryside with their scarlet hue, and, as they drop, form a brilliant thread in the most beau- tiful of all carpets—that of the autumn leaves. I think no walk in the really happy days of the fall maturity of growing things is quite so pleasant as that which leads one to shuffle through this deep forest floor covering of ori- ental richness of hue. As the ground warms and the sun searches into the hearts of the buds, the Norway maple, familiar street tree of Eastern cities, breaks into a wonderful bloom. Very deceptive it is, and taken for the opening foliage by the casual ob- server; yet there is, when these flowers first 8 wWseTtORY OF SOME MAPLES open, no hint of leaf on the tree, save that of the swelling bud. All that soft haze of greenish yellow is bloom, and bloom of the utmost beauty. The charm lies not in boldness of color or of contrast, but at the other extreme —in the deli- cacy of differing tints, in the variety of subtle shades and tones. There are charms of form and of fragrance, too, in this Norway maple — the flowers are many-rayed stars, and they emit a faint, spicy odor, noticeable only when several trees are together in bloom. And these flowers last long, comparatively; so long that the green- “The Norway maple breaks into a wonderful bloom” 9 GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES ish yellow of the young leaves begins to combine with them before they fall. The tints of flower and of leaf melt insensibly into each other, so that, as I have remarked before, the casual ob- server says, “The leaves are out on the Norway maples,”—not knowing of the great mass of delightful flowers that have preceded the leaves above his unseeing eyes. I emphasize this, for I hope some of my readers may be on the outlook for a new pleasure in early spring—the bloom- ing of this maple, with flowers so thoroughly distinct and so entirely beautiful. The samaras to follow on this Norway maple are smaller than those of the other two maples mentioned, and they hang together at a different angle, somewhat more graceful. I have often wondered how the designers, who work to death the pansies, the roses and the violets, have man- aged to miss a form or “motive” of such value, suggesting at once the near-by street and far- away Egypt. A purely American species, and one of as much economic importance as any leaf-dropping tree, is the sugar maple, known also as rock maple—one designation because we can get 10 Samaras of the sugar maple sweetness from its sap, the other because of the hardness of its wood. ‘The sugar maples of New England, to me, are more individual and almost more essentially beautiful than the famed elms. No saccharine life-blood is drawn from rae elm; therefore its:elegance is considered. I notice that we seldom think much of beauty when it attaches to something we can eat! Who fedlizes that the commen ‘corn, the American maize, is a stately and elegant plant, far more beautiful than many a pampered pet of the green- He GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES house? But this is not a corn story—I shall hope to be heard on the neglected beauty of many common things, some day — and we can for the time overlook the syrup of the sugar maple for its delicate blossoms, coming long after the red and the silver are done with their flowers. These sugar-maple blooms hang on slender stems; they come with the first leaves, and are very different in appearance from the flowers of other maples. The observer will have no trouble in recognizing them after the first successful attempt, even though he may be baffled in comparing the maple leaves by the apparent similarity of the foliage of the Nor- way, the sugar and the sycamore maples at certain stages of growth. After all, it is the autumn time that brings this maple most strongly before us, for it flaunts its banners of scarlet and yellow in the woods, along the roads, with an insouciant swing of its own. The sugar possibility as forgotten, and it is a pure autumn pleasure to appreciate the richness of color, to be soon followed by the more sober cognizance of the elegance of outline and form disclosed when all the deli- 12 ae Ny, A mature sycamore maple GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES cate tracery of twig and bough stands revealed against winter’s frosty sky. The sugar maple has a curious habit of ripening or reddening some of its branches very early, as if it was hanging out a warning signal to the squirrels and the chipmunks to hurry along with their storing of nuts against the winter’s need. I re- member being puzzled one August morning as I drove along one of Delaware’s flat, flat roads, to know what could possibly have produced the brilliant, blazing scarlet banner that hung across a distant wood as if a dozen red flags were being there displayed. Closer approach disclosed one rakish branch on a sugar maple, all afire with color, while every other leaf on the tree yet held the green of summer. Again in the mountains, one late summer, half a lusty sugar maple set up a conflagration which, I was informed, presaged its early death. But the next summer it grew as freely as ever, and retained its sober green until the cool days and nights; just as if the ebullition of the season previous was but a breaking out of extra color life, rather than a suggeditiom of weakness or death. 14 Sycamore maple blossoms The Norway maple is botanically dcer plata- noides, really meaning plane-like maple, from the similarity of its leaves to those of the European plane. The sycamore maple is Acer Pseudo-plat- ‘anus, which, being translated, means that old Linneus thought it a sort of false plane-like maple. Both are European species, but both are far more familiar, as street and lawn trees, to us dwellers in cities than are many of our purely American species. There is a little difference in the bark of the two, and the leaves of the syca- more, while almost identical in form, are darker lee) GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES and thicker than those of the Norway, and they are whitish underneath, instead of light green. The habit of the two is twin-like; they can scarcely be distinguished when the leaves are off. But the flowers are totally different, and one would hardly believe them to be akin, judg- ing only by appearances. The young leaves of the sycamore maple are lush and vigorous when the long, grape-like flower-clusters appear below the twigs. “Racemes” they are, botanically— and that is another truly good scientific word— while the beautiful Norway maple’s flowers must stand the angular designation of “cor- ymbs.” But don’t miss looking for the syca- more maple’s long, pendulous racemes. They seem more grape-like than grape blossoms; and they stay long, apparently, the transition from flower to fruit being very gradual. I mind me of a sycamore I pass every winter day, with its dead fruit-clusters, a reminiscence of the flower-racemes, swinging in the frosty breeze, waiting until the spring push of the life within the twigs shoves them off. To be ready to recognize this maple at the right time, it is well to observe and mark the 16 A STORY OF SOME MAPLES difference between it and the Norway in the summer time, noting the leaves and the bark as suggested above. Another maple that is different is one vari- ously known as box-elder, ash-leaved maple, or negundo. Of rapid growth, it makes a lusty, irregular tree. Its green-barked, withe-like limbs seem willing to grow in any direction— down, up, sidewise—and the result is a pecu- liar formlessness that has its own merit. I think of a fringe of box-elders along Paxton Creek, decked in early spring with true maple Flowers of the ash-leaved maple | GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREee flowers on thread-like stems, each cluster sur- mounted by soft green foliage apparently bor- rowed from the ash, and it seems that no other tree could fit better into the place or the sea- son. Then I remember another, a single stately tree that has had a great field all to itself, and stands up in superb dignity, dominating even the group of pin-oaks nearest to it. Twas the surprising mist of bloom on this tree that took me up the field on a run, one spring day, when the running was sweet in the air, but sticky underfoot. The color effect of the flowers is most delicate, and almost inde- scribable in ordinary chromatic terms. Don’t miss the acquaintance of the ash-leaved maple at its flowering time, in the very flush of the springtime, my tree-loving friends ! I have not found a noticeable fragrance in the flowers of the box-elder, such as is very apparent where there is a group of Norway maples in bloom together. The .red maples also give to the air a faint and delightfully spicy odor, under favorable conditions. May I hint that the lusty box-elder, when it is booming along its spring growth, furnishes 18 >> "Wen" in bloom The ash-leaved maples GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES a loose-barked whistle stick about as good as those that come from the willow? The gen- erous growth that provides its loosening sap can also spare a few twigs for the boys, and they will be all the better for a melodious reason for the spring ramble. The striped maple of Pennsylvania, a com- paratively rare and entirely curious small tree or large shrub, is not well known, though growing freely as “elkwood” and “moose- wood” in the Alleghanies, because it is rather hard to transplant, and thus offers no induce- ments to the nurserymen. ‘These good people, like the rest of us, move along the lines of least resistance, wherefore many a fine tree or fruit is rare to us, because shy or difficult of growth, or perhaps unsymmetrical. The fine Rhode Island Greening apple is unpopular because the young tree is crooked, while the leather-skinned and punk- fleshed Ben Davis is a model of symmetry and rapidity of growth. Our glorious tulip tree of the woods, because of its relative difficulty in transplanting, has had to be insisted upon from the nurserymen by those who know its superb beauty. For the 20 AWTORY OF SOME MAPLES same reason this small charming maple, with the large, soft, comfortable leaves upon which the deer love to browse, is kept from showing its delicate June bloom and its remarkable ~ fs ey striped bark in our home _ grounds. I hope yp. some maple friends will look for it, and, finding, admire this, the aristocrat among our native species. The mountain maple —the nurserymen call it Acer spicatum—is an- other native of rather dwarf growth. It is bushy, and not remark- able: in leaf, ats claim for distinction being in its flowers and samaras, which are held saucily up, above the branches on which they grow, rather than drooping modestly, as other maples gracefully Striped maple PM = GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES bear their bloom and fruit. These shiny seeds or keys are brightly scarlet, as well, and thus very attractive in color. There is a reason for this, in nature’s economy; for while the loosely hung samaras of the other maples are distributed by the breezes, the red pods of this mountain maple hold stifHy upward to attract the birds upon whom it largely depends for that sowing which must precede its reproduction. Of the other maples of America—a score of them there are—I might write pages, to weari- ness. The black maple of the Eastern woods, the large-leaved maples of the West, these and many more are in this great family, to say nothing of the many interesting cultivated forms and variations introduced from European nurseries, and most serviceable in formal orna- mental planting. But I have told of those I know best and those that any reader can know as well in one season, if he looks for them with the necessary tree love which is but a fine form of true love of God’s creation. This love, once implanted, means surer protection for the trees, otherwise so defenseless against the unthinking vandalism of commercialism or incompetence — Pap) “a STORY OF SOME MAPLES a vandalism that has not only devastated our American forests, but mutilated shamefully many trees of priceless value in and about our cities. Of the Japanese maples—their leaves seem- ingly a showing of the ingenuity of these Yankees of the Orient, in their twists of form and depths of odd color—lI could tell a tale, but it would be of the tree nursery and not of the broad out- doors. Let us close the book and go afield, in park or meadow, on street or lawn, and look to the maples for an unsuspected feast of bloom, if it be spring, or for richness of foliage in sum- mer and autumn; and in coldest winter let us notice the delicate twigs and yet sturdy structure of this tree family that is most of all character- istic of the home, in city or country. 23 The Growth of the Dak The Growth of the Dak TT HE old saw has it, “Great oaks from little acorns grow,” and all of us who _remer ber the Saying? have thus some of what beginning of an oak is. But id ca , of the eginning @F the acorn? In a eral Way se “one inferentially ~supposes that there ust/ be amflower somewhere.in the life- or of _theg towering white oak that has defied Ahe "storm type of aenine sturdy and strong and mas- sof centuries and seems a eiline ; but what sort of a flower could one pine as the source of so much majesty? We know of the great magnolias, with blooms befitting the richness of the foliage that follows pacm. We sec, and some of us admire, the exquisitely delicate blossoms of that splendid American tree, the tulip or whitewood. We inhale with delight the fragrance that makes notable the time when the common _ locust sends forth its white racemes of loveliness. =i GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREE But we miss, many of us, the flowering of the oaks in early spring, and we do not rea- lize that this family of trees, most notable for rugged strength, has its bloom of beginning at the other end of the scale, in flowers of delicate coloring and rather diminutive size. The reason I missed appreciating the flow- ers of the oak—they are quite new to me— for some years of tree admiration was because of the distracting accompaniment the tree gives to the blooms. Some trees—most of the ma- ples, for instance —send out their flowers boldly ahead of the foliage, and it is thus easy to see what is happening above your head, as you stroll along drinking in the spring’s nectar of spicy air. Others, again, have such showy blooms that the mass of foliage only accentu- ates their attractiveness, and it is not possible to miss them. But the oak is different; it 1s as modest as it is strong, and its bloom is nearly sur- rounded by the opening leaves in most seasons and in most of the species I am just begin- ing to be acquainted with. Then, too, these opening leaves are of such indescribable colors 28 w 27 Be OS 7; sa PNK The swamp white oak in winter GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES —if the delicate chromatic tints they reflect to the eye may be so strongly named —that they harmonize, and do not contrast, with the flowers. It is with them almost as with a fearless chipmunk whose acquaintance I culti- vated one summer—he was gay with stripes of soft color, yet he so fitted any surroundings he chose to be in that when he was quiet he simply disappeared! The oak’s flowers and its exquisite unfolding of young foliage combine in one effect, and it is an effect so beautiful that one easily fails to separate its parts, or to see which of the mass of soft pink, gray, yellow and green is bloom and which of it is leafage. Take the pin-oak, for instance, and note the softness of the greenery above its flowers. Hardly can we define the young leaves as green—they are all tints, and all beautiful. This same pin-oak, by the way (I mean the one the botanists call Quercus palustris), is a notable contradiction of the accepted theory that an oak of size and dignity cannot be reared -in a lifetime. , There are hundredsiigs lusty pin-oaks all over the Eastern States that 30 Flowers of the pin-oak are shading the homes of the wise men who planted them in youth, and they might well adorn our parks and avenues in place of many far less beautiful and permanent trees. With ordinary care, and in good soil, the pin-oak grows rapidly, and the characteristic spreading habit and the slightly down-drooping branches are always attractive. In its age it has not the ruggedness of its kin, though it assumes a stately and somewhat formal habit, and, I 31 GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE -TREES must confess, accumulates some ragged dead branches in its interior. This raggedness is easily cared for, for the tree requires—and few trees do—no “trim- ming” of its outer branches. The interior twigs that the rapid growth of the tree has deprived of air and light can be quickly and easily removed. In Washington, where street- tree planting has been and is_ intelligently managed under central authority, the avenues of pin-oaks are a splendid feature of the great boulevards which are serving already as a model to the whole country. Let us plant oaks, and relieve the monotony of too many maples, pop- lars and horse-chestnuts along our city and village highways. I like, too, to see the smooth little acorns of the pin-oak before the leaves drop; they seem so finished and altogether pleasing, and with the leaves make a classical decorative motive worth more attention from designers. While I am innocent of either ability or intent to write botanically of the great oak family, I ought perhaps to transcribe the information that the flowers we see—if we 32 THETGROW TH OF THE OAK look just at the right time in the spring —are known as “staminate catkins,’— which, being interpreted, means that there are also pistillate flowers, much less conspicuous, but exceedingly necessary if acorns are to result; and also the fact that the familiar “pussy-willow” of our acquaintance is the same form of bloom —the e2tcin, or ament. I. ought to.say, too, that some of the oaks perfect acorns from blossoms in one year, while others must grow through two seasons before they are mature. Botanically, the oak family is nearly a world family, and we Americans, though possessed of many spe- tices, have no monopoly of it. Indeed, if I iy, Gate to refer the reader .to that great storehouse of words, the Encyclopedia Britan- mca, I think he will find that the - oak is there very British, and that the English oak, surely a magnificent tree in England anyway, is patriotically glorified to the writer. But we want to talk of some of our own oaks. The one thoroughly characteristic is surely the noble white oak, a tree most admi- rable in every way, and most widely distributed over the Northern States. Its majestic form, 33 GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE, TREES as it towers high above the ordinary works of man, conveys the repose of conscious strength to the beholder. -There is a great “oak Connecticut to which I make pilgrimages, and from which I always get a message of rest and peace. There it stands, strong, full-pow- ered, minding little the most furious storms, a benediction to every one who will but lift his eyes. There it has stood in full majese for years unknown, for it was a great oak, so run the title-deeds, way back in 1636, when first the white man began to own land in the Connecticut Valley. At first sight it seems not large, for its perfect symmetry conceals its great size; but its impression grows as one looks at it, until it seems to fill the whole land- scape. I have sat under it in spring, when yet its leafy canopy was incomplete; I have looked into its green depths in midsummer, when its grateful shadow refreshed the highway; I have seen the sun set in redness beyond its bare limbs, the snowy countryside emphasizing its noble lines; I have tried to fathom the mystery in its sturdy heart overhead when the full moon rode in the sky; and always that “great 34 PE NGROY TH OF THE OAK oak of Glastonbury” has soothed and cheered and rested, and taken me nearer the Giver of all such good to restless humanity. Do I wonder at my friend who has built his home where he may look always at this white oak, or that he raged in anger when a crabbed neighbor. ruthlessly cut down a superb tree of the same kind that was on his ptop- eer line, in order that he might tun his barbed-wire fence straight? No; I agree with him that this tree-murderer has probably a Barpeed-wire heart,’ and we expect that his future existence will be treeless, at least! Sometimes this same white oak adapts itself fo the bank of a stream, though its true character develops best in the drier ground. Its strength has been its bane, for the value of its timber has caused many a great isolated specimen to be cut down. It is fine to know that some States— Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island also, I think—have given to trees along highways, and in situations where iaey sare part of the highway landscape, the protection of a wise law. Under this law each town appoints a tree-warden, serving without 35 The swamp white oak in early spring PHA IGROW TH OF THE OAK pay (and therefore with love), who may seal to the town by his label such trees as are truly the common possession, regardless of whose land they happen to be on. If the owner desires to cut down a tree thus designated, he must first obtain permission, after stating satisfactory reasons, of the annual town-meeting, and _ this is not so easy as to make cutting very fre- quent. The whole country should have such a law, and I should enjoy its application right here in Pennsylvania, where oaks of a hundred years have been cut down to make room for a whisky sign, and where a superb pin-oak that I passed today is devoted to an igno- minious use. If I may venture to become hortatory, let me say that the responsibility for the preservation of the all-too-few remaining great primeval trees, and of their often notable progeny, in our Eastern States, rests with those who care for trees, not alone with those who ought to care. To talk about the great- ness and beauty of a fine oak or maple or tulip, to call attention to its shade value, and to appeal to the cupidity of the ground owner by estimating how much less his property will 37 GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE, TREES be worth when the trees are gone or have been mishandled, will aid to create the necessary public sentiment. And to provide wise laws, as may be often done with proper attention, is the plain duty and the high privilege of the tree-loving citizen. The trees are defenseless, — and they are often unreplaceable; if you love them protect them as you would your children. The white-oak leaf is the most familiar and characteristic, perhaps, of the family; but other species, close to the white oak in habit, show foliage of a very different appearance. The swamp white oak, for instance, is a noble tree, and in winter particularly its irregular branches give it an especial expression of rugged strength as it grows along a brookside; but its leaves smooth up on the edges, giving only a hint of the deep serrations that typify its upland brother. Deeply green above are these leaves and softly white below, and in late summer there. appears, here and there, ..on /aepscoee stem, a most attractive acorn of large vysige: Its curious cup gives a hint, or more than a hint, as to the special designating character of another oak, the mossy-cup or bur. This lat- 38 An old post-oak GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES ter species is beautiful in its habit, rich in its foliage, and the fringed or mossed acorns are of a remarkable size. Of all the oaks, the sturdy but not lofty post-oak spreads the richest display of foliage. Its peculiar habit leads to the even placing of its violoncello-shaped leaves, and its generous crop of acorns gives added distinction in late summer. It is fine. in. the forest) amigge notable ornament anywhere. It has been said that a proper penance for an offending botanist would be a compulsory separation and description of the involved and complicated goldenrod family; and I would suggest that a second edition of the same penance might be a requirement to name off- hand the first dozen oak trees the same poor botanist might meet. So much do the foliage, the bark, and the habit of growth vary, and so considerable is the difference between individ- uals of the same species, that the wisest expert is likely to be the most conservative. An unbotanical observer, who comes at the family just because ‘he loves trees in general, and is poking his eyes and his camera into unusual 40 THE GROWTH OF THE OAK places, doesn’t make close determinations; he tells what he thinks he sees, and leaves exact work to the scientists. There are some oaks, however, that have borrowed the foliage of other trees so cunningly that one at first scouts the possibility of the Quercus parentage, until he sees an undeniable acorn thrusting itself forward. ‘Then he is sure that what seemed a rather peculiarly shaped chestnut tree, with somewhat stumpy foliage, is A blooming twig of the swamp white oak 4l GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES none other than the chestnut-oak. A fine tree it is, too, this same chestnut-oak, with its mas- querading foliage of deep green, its upright and substantial habit, its rather long and aristocratic- looking acorns. The authorities tell that its wood, too, is brownish and valuable; but we tree-lovers are not enthusiastic over mere tim- ber values, because that means the killing of the:-trees. . The willow-oak will not deceive, because its habit is so oak-like and so willow-less; but its foliage is surely borrowed from its graceful and more rapidly growing neighbor. Not so large, by any means, as the white oak or the chestnut- oak, it has somewhat rough and reddish bark, and its acorns are perfected in the second year of their growth, close to the twigs, in the way of the pin-oak. The general aspect of the tree is upright, rather than spreading, and it par- takes thus of the maple character in its land- scape effect. The willow-oak is one of the species I would, if I were writing a tree-plant- ing article, heartily commend to those who wish to add adornment to the countryside that shall be permanent and satisfactory. Just a hint 42 THES GROWTH OF THE OAK here: nursery-grown oaks, now obtainable from any modern establishment, have usually been frequently moved or transplanted, as the trade term goes, and this means that they have established a somewhat self-contained root sys- tem, which will give them far greater vigor and cause them to take hold sooner when finally placed in a situation where they are to Bes permanent features. The reason is plain: the forest seedling, in the fierce struggle for existence usually prevailing, must send its roots far and wide for food, and when it is dug out their feeding capacity is so seriously curtailed as to check the growth of the tree for many years. The nursery-grown tree, on the contrary, has been brought up “by hand,” and its food has always been convenient to it, leading to more rapid growth and a more compact root system. I only interject this prosaic fact here in the hope that some of my tree-loving readers will undertake to plant some oaks instead of only the soft-wooded and less permanent maples, poplars, and the like. Another simulative leaf is that of the laurel- oak, and it is color and gloss as well as shape 25. GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES that have been borrowed from its humbler neighbor in the forest. The shining green of the laurel is seen in these oak leaves; they are also half evergreen, thus being one of the family particularly belonging to our Southern States, and hardly enduring the chill of the winters north of Virginia. It is one of the galaxy of oaks I remember as providing a special interest in the Georgia forests, where the long-leaved pine also gave a new tree sensation to the visitor from the North, who at first could hardly imagine what those lovely little green fountains of foliage were that he saw along the roadside and in the woods. The Georgia oaks seem to me to have a richness of foliage, a color and substance and shine, that compare only with the excellence of two other products of the same State—the peach and the watermelon. The long summer and the plenitude of sunshine seem to weave into these products luxuriance found nowhere else; and when one sees for the first time a happy, rollicking bunch of round-eyed negro children, innocent alike of much clothing or any trouble, mixing up with the juicy Georgia melon under 44 THE GROWTH OF THE OAK the shade of a luxuriant oak, he gets a new conception of at least one part of the race problem! One of the things I wanted much to see when I first traveled South was the famed live- oak, the majesty and the mournfulness of which had been long sung into me. Perhaps I expected too much, as I did of the palmetto, another part of my quest, but surely there was ‘disappointment when I was led, on the banks of the Manatee River in Florida, to see a famous live-oak. It was tall and grand, but its adornment of long, trailing gray Spanish moss, which was to have attached the sadness to it, seemed merely to make it unkempt and uncomfortable. I was instantly reminded of a tree at home in the far North that I had never thought particularly beautiful, but which now, by comparison, took on an attractiveness it has never since lost. Imagine a great spreading weeping willow turned dingy gray, and you have a fair picture of a moss-covered live-oak ; but you will prefer it green, as is the willow, I believe. One day a walk about Savannah, which city 45 GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES has many splendid live-oaks in its parks and squares, involved me in a sudden shower, when, presto! the weeping willow of the North was reincarnated before my eyes, for the falling rain turned the dingy moss pendants of the live- oak to the whitish green that makes the willow such a delightful color-note in early spring. I have been thankful often for that shower, for it gave a better feeling about the live-oak, and made me admire the weeping willow. The live-oak, by the way, has a leaf very little like the typical oak—it is elliptical in shape and smooth in outline. The curious parasitic moss that so frequently covers the tree obscures the really handsome foliage. The English Oak, grand tree that aimee grows well in America, as everything English should by right, and there are fine trees of this Quercus Robur on Long Island. The acorns are of unusual elegance, as the photograph which shows them will prove. The red oak, the black oak, the scarlet oak, all splendid forest trees of the Northeast, are in the group of confusion that can be readily separated only by the timber-cruiser, who knows 46 THESGROWTH OF THE OAK every tree in the forest for its economic value, or by the botanist, with his limp-bound Gray‘s Manual in hand. I confess to bewilderment in five minutes after the differences have been explained to me, and I enjoyed, not long ago, the confusion of a skilful nurseryman who was endeavoring to show me his young trees of red oak which the label proved to be scarlet! But the splendidly effective trees themselves can be fully appreciated, and the distinctions will appear as one studies carefully the features of these living gifts of mature’s greenness. The trees wait on one, and once the habit of appreciation and investigation is formed, each Acorns of the English oak 47 GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES walk afield, in forest or park, leads to the acquirement of some new bit of tree-lore, that becomes more precious and delightful as it is passed on and commented upon in association with some other member of the happily grow- ing fraternity of nature-lovers. These oak notes are not intended to be complete, but only to suggest some _ points for investigation and appreciation to my fellows in the brotherhood. I have never’ walked between Trenton and New York, and _there- fore never made the desired acquaintance with the scrub-oaks along the way. Nor have I dipped as fully into the oak treasures of the Arnold Arboretum as I want to some day. But my camera is yet available and the trees are waiting; the tree love is growing and the tree friends are inviting, and together we will add to the oak knowledge and to that thankful- ness for God and life and love and friends that the trees do most constantly cause to flourish. 48 Ts Vid We we , ‘vy 1, the pines— seem to 7 not. quite so _exclu- ow the ‘South. The “ long life: and den too, as ins, not to the plains; steep: slopes with their varied deep er_ than as. standing against the “a the-sea— Yet I venture to think 1e most! of “us in the East see oftenest pines “ebuliar te the lowlands, as we flit Tom city to city over the steel highways of travel, and have most to do, in an econom- ical sense, with a pine that does not come north of the Carolinas—the yellow pine which furnishes our familiar house - flooring. The pine family, as we discuss it, is not all pines, in exactitude —it includes many diverse $i GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES trees that the botanist describes as conifers. These cone-bearing trees are nearly all ever- greens—that is, the foliage persists the year round, instead of being deciduous, as the leaf- dropping maples, oaks, birches, and the like are scientifically designated. Historically the pines are of hoary age, for they are closely related to the growths that furnished the geo- logic coal measures stored up in the founda- tions of the earth for our use now. Econom- ically, too, all the pine family together is of vast importance —“the most important order of forest trees in the economy of civilized man,” says Dr. Fernow; for, as he adds, the cone- bearing trees “have furnished the bulk of the material of which our civilization is built.” As usual, civilization has destroyed ruthlessly, thoughtlessly, almost viciously, in using this material; wherefore the devastation of the for- ests, moving them back from us farther and farther until in many regions they are but a thin fringe, has left most of us totally unfa- miliar with these trees, of the utmost beauty as well as of the greatest value. To know anything at all of the spruces, §2 A lone pine on the Indian River GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES pines and hemlocks is to love them for the refreshment there is in their living presence, rather than to consider them merely for the timber value. But the point of view differs immensely with one’s occupation. I remember finding in the depths of an Alleghany forest a comparatively rare native orchid, then new to me—the round-leaved or orbicular habe- naria. While I was gloating over it with my camera a gray-haired native of the neighbor- hood joined me, and, to my surprise, assisted in the gloating—he, too, loved the woods and the plants. Coming a little later to a group of magnificent hemlocks, with great, clean, towering trunks reaching up a hundred feet through the soft maples and yellow birches and beeches which seemed dwarfed by these veterans, I exclaimed in admiration. “Yes,” he said, “them’s mighty fine hemlocks. I calc’late thet one to the left would bark near five dollars’ wuth!” On the rare plant we had joined in esthetic appreciation, but the hemlock was to the old lumberman but a source of tan- bark. This search for tannin, by the yvaygee St THE PINES to blame for much wanton destruction. Young hemlocks, from four to six inches in diameter, gee iclled, stripped. of their- bark, and ‘left cumbering the ground, to invite fire and to make of the woods an unkempt cemetery. he. fall of a tree from* natural -causes’ is fol- lowed by the interesting and beauty- making process of its mossy decay and return to the forest floor, furnishing in the process nour- ishment for countless seedlings and plants. A tree felled in maturity under enlightened for- est management is all removed for its timber, and leaves the ground clear; but the opera- tions of the bark-hunter leave only hideous destruction and a “slash” that is most difficult to clear in later years. This same hemlock makes a most impres- sive forest. To walk among primeval hem- locks brings healing to the mind and peace to the soul, as one realizes fully that “the groves were God’s first temples,” and that God is close to one in these beneficent solitudes, where petty things must fall away, vexations cease, and man’s spiritual nature absorb the message of the forest. 55 Parti wie par CEN Hemlock Hill, Arnold Arboretum ( Boston) DAE OP INES I wonder how many of my readers realize that an exquisite bit of real hemlock forest lies not five miles from Boston Commoner At the Arnold Arboretum, that noble collection of trees and plants, “Hemlock Hill” is assuming Geeper majesty year after year as ‘its trees pam ape and size. It «presents exactly the pyre forest conditions, and makes accessible to thousands the full beauty and soothing that nothing but a coniferous forest can provide for man. There is the great collateral advan- Pe. too, that. to reach~ Hemlock Hill, the visitor must use a noble entrance, and pass other trees and plants which, in the adequate setting here given, cannot but do him much good, and prepare him for the deep sylvan temple of the hemlocks he is seeking. To visit the Arboretum at the time when the curious variety of the apple relatives— pyruses and the like—bloom, is to secure a_ great benefit of sight and scent, and it is almost certain to make one resolve to return when these blossoms shall, by nature’s perfect work, have become fruit. Here the fruit is grown for its beauty only, and thus no gastronomic Sif GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES possibilities interfere with the appreciation of color, and form, and situation! But again, to come to the Arboretum some time during the reign of the lilacs is to experience an veyvem greater pleasure, perhaps, for here the old farm garden “laylock” assumes a wonderful diversity of form and color, from the palest wands of the Persian sorts to the deepest blue of some of the French hybrids. The pines themselves will well repay any investigation and appreciation. Seven species are with us in the New England and Middle Atlantic States, seven more are found South, while the great West, with its yet magnificent forests, has twenty-five pines of distinct char- acter. The white pine is perhaps most famil- iar to us, because of its economic importance, and it is as well the tallest and most notable of all those we see:-in the East: Fromme first essay as a seedling, with its original clus- ter of five delicate blue-green leaflets, to its lusty youth, when it is spreading and broad, if given room to grow, it is a fine objren and I have had some thrills of joy at finding this splendid common thing planted in well- 58 TE PINES placed groups on the grounds of wealthy men, instead of some Japanese upstart with a name a yard long and a truly crooked Oriental dis- position! In age the white pine dominates any landscape, wearing even the scars of its long battle with the elements with stately dignity. A noble pair of white pines on the shore of Lake Champlain I remember especially —they were the monarchs of the lakeside as they towered above all other trees. Ragged they were, their symmetry gone long years ago through attacks of storms and through strife with the neighboring trees that had succumbed while they only suffered and stood firm. Yet they seemed all complete, of proved strength and staying power, and their aspect was not of defiance or anger, but rather indicative of beneficent strength, as if they said, “Here we stand; somewhat crippled, it is true, but yet pointing upright to the heavens, yet vigorous, yet seed-bearing and cheerful!” Another group of these white pines that stood close to some only less picturesque red pimes on the ‘shores of a pond deep in the Adirondacks emphasized again for me _ one 59 GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES May day the majesty of this beneficent friend of mankind; and yet another old pine mon- arch against the sunset sky pointed the west- ward way from the picturesque Cornell campus, and alas! also pointed the danger to even this one unreplaceable tree when modern “enter- prise” constructs a trolley line on a scenic route, ruthlessly destroying the very features that make the route desirable, rather than go to any mechanical trouble! My readers will easily recall for themselves just the same sort of “old pine” groups they have record of on memory’s picture - gallery, and will, I am sure, agree with me as to the informality, dignity and true beauty of these survivors of the forest, all of which deserve to be appreciatively cared for, against any encroachment of train, trolley or lumberman. I am ashamed to say I have not yet seen the blossoms of the white pine, which the botanists tell us come in early spring, minute and light brown, to be followed by the six- inch-long cones which mature the second year. I promise my camera that another spring it shall be turned toward these shy blossoms. 60 THE PINES Any one who has traveled south of Virginia, even by the Pullman way of not seeing, cannot fail to have noted the lovely green leaf-foun- tains springing up from the ground along the mailroads, Lhese are the young trees of the long-leaved or Southern yellow pine. How beautiful they are, these narrow leaves of vivid green, more than a foot long, drooping grace- fully from the center outward, with none of the stiffness of our Northern species! In some places they seem to fairly bubble in green from all the surface of the ground, so close are they. And the grand long-leaved pine itself, maintained in lusty vigor. above these greeneries, is a tree of simple dignity, empha- sized strongly when seen at its best either ime the uncut forest, or in a planted avenue. Mevot the North are helping to ruin the next generation of Southern pines by lavish use, for decorations, of the young trees of about two feet high, crowded with the long drooping emerald needles. The little cut-off pine lasts a week or two, in a parlor—it. took four or five years to grow! All pine-cones are interesting, and there is 61 The fountain-like effect of the young long-leaved pine (3a ae The long-leaved pines of the South GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES a great variation between the different species. The scrub-pine one sees along the railroads between New York and Philadelphia has rather stubby cones, while the pitch-pine, beloved of the fireplace for its “light-knots,” has a some- what pear-shaped and gracefully disposed cone. A most peculiar cone is that of a variety of the Norway pine, which, among other species brought from Europe, is valued for ornament. The common jack-pine of the Middle States hillsides wears symmetrical and handsome cones with dignity. Cones are, of course, the fruits or seed-holders of the pine, but the seeds themselves are found at the base of the scales, or parts of the cones, attached in pairs. Each cone, like an apple, has in its care a number of seeds, which it guards against various dan- gers until a kindly soil encourages the rather slow germination characteristic of the order. The nurserymen have imported many pines from Europe, which give pleasing variety to our ornamental plantings, and aid in enriching the winter coloring. The Austrian pine and the Scotch pine are welcome additions to our own pine family. In these days of economic 64 THE PINES chemistry and a deficient rag supply, every reader of these words is probably in close proximity to an important spruce product— paper. The manufacturers say, with hand on heart, that they do not use much wood pulp, but when one has passed a great paper-mill flanked on all sides by piles of spruce logs, with no bales of rags in sight anywhere, he is tempted to think otherwise! Modern forestry is now planting trees on waste lands for the pulp “crop,” and the common poplar is coming in to relieve the spruces. Beautiful trees are these spruces and _ firs, either in the forest or when brought by the planter to his home grounds. The leaves are much shorter than those of most pines, and clothe the twigs closely. There is a _ vast variety in color, too, from the wonderful whitish or “glaucous” blue of the Colorado blue spruce, to the deep shining green of Nordmann’s fir, a splendid introduction from the Caucasus. Look at them, glistening in the winter sun, or drooping with the clinging snow; walk in a spruce wood, inhaling the bracing balsamic fragrance which seems so 65 GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES kindly to the lungs; hark to the music of the wind in their tops, telling of health and pu- rity, of God’s love and provision for man’s mind and heart, and you will begin to know the song of the firs. To really hear this grand symphony, for such it then becomes, you must listen to the wind playing on the tops of a great primeval coniferous forest, of scores and hundreds of acres or miles in extent. And even then, many visits are needed, for there are movements to this symphony—the allegro of the gale, the scherzo of the easy morning breeze, the deep adagio of a rain-storm, and the andante of warm days and summer breezes, when you may repose prone upon a soft carpet of pine needles, every sense made alert, yet soothed, by the master-theme you are hearing. There is a little wood of thick young pines, interspersed with hard maple and an occasional birch, close by the lake of the Eagles, where my summers are made happy. The closeness of the pines has caused their lower branches to die, as always in the deep forest, and the falling needles, year by year, have deepened the soft brown carpet that covers the forest 66 ite pines An avenue of wh GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES floor. Some one, years ago, struck by the aisles that the straight trunks mark out so clearly, called this the “Cathedral Woods.” The name seems appropriate at all times, but especially when, on a warm Sunday afternoon, I lie at ease on the aromatic carpet, hearing the wom organ tones in the pine tops, and drinking in God’s forest message. I have visited these pine woods at midnight, when a full moon, making brilliant the near-by lake, gave but a ghostly gloom in the deep deep silence of the Cathedral; bute impressive, I have often trodden through in a white fog, when the distance was misty and dim, and the aisles seemed longer and higher, and to lead one further away from the trifles of temper and trial. Indeed, I do not believe that any one who has but once fully received from the deep forest that which it gives out so freely and constantly can- ever thinkijms things trivial, or of minor annoyances, while again within its soothing portals. But of the trees of the forest of pine and spruce it must be noted that sometimes the deepest, glossiest green of the leaves as presented 68 THE PINES to the eye only hides the dainty, white-lined interior surface of those same leaves. To the outside, a somber dignity, unassailable, un- touched by frost or sun, protective, defenseful, as nature often appears to the careless observer; but inside is light, softly reflected, revealing unsuspected delicacies of structure and finish. To us who are not woodsmen or “timber- cruisers” the most familiar of all the spruces is the introduced form from Norway. Its yel- lowish green twigs are bright and cheerful, and in specimens that have reached the fruiting age the crown of cones, high up in the tree, is an additional charm, for these soft brown “strobiles,” as the botanist calls them, are smooth and regular, and very different from those of the rugged pines. I have often been told that the Norway spruce was short-lived, and that it became unkempt in age; but now that I have lived for ten years and more beside a noble specimen, I know that the change from the upreaching push of youth to the semi- drooping sedateness of maturity is only a taking on of dignity. There stands on the home grounds of a true tree-lover in Pennsylvania 69 GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES a Norway spruce that has been untouched by knife or disaster since its planting many years ago. No pruning has shortened in its “leader” or top, no foolish idea of “trimming it up” has been allowed to deprive it of the very lowest branches, which, in consequence, now sweep the ground in full perfection, while the unchecked point of the tree still aspires upward forty feet above. A_ beautiful object is this tree—perhaps the most beautiful of all the conifers in my friend’s great “pinetum,” with its scores of rare species. Let me ask, then, those who would set this or any other tree of evergreen about the home, to see to it that the young tree from the nursery has all its lower branches intact, and that its top has never been mutilated. With care, such specimens may be obtained and successfully transplanted, and will grow in time to a lovely old age of steady greenness. The balsam fir is almost indistinguishable from the Norway spruce when young, but soon grows apart from it in habit, and is hardly as desirable, even though a native. “It/4s igo in the true balsamic odor; and this, again, is 7O RAE OPEN ES its destruction; for one “spruce pillow” may destroy a half dozen trees! The white cedar, our common _ juniper, with its aromatic blue berries or fruits, is per- haps the most familiar of all the native ever- greens. It comes to us of Pennsylvania all too freely at Christmas time, when the tree of joy and gifts may mean, in the wholesale, sad forest destruction. This juniper I have associated particularly with , the dogwood and the red- bud; to the bloom of which it sup- S plies a most pertect back- ground in the favorite Cone- maeo park; a purely natural reservation of things beautiful along the Pennsylvania railroad. Its lead-pencil GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES sister, the red cedar, reaches our literary senses as closely as does the pulp-making spruce! I might write much of the rare introduced cypresses from Japan and China, and of the peculiar variations that have been worked out by the nurserymen among the native pines and firs; yet this would not be talk of the trees of the open ground, but rather of the nursery and the park. Also, if I had but seen them, there would be much to say about the mag- nificent conifers of the great West, from the giant red-woods, or sequoias, of the Mariposa grove in California to the richly varied’ pines of the Rockies. But I can only suggest to my readers the intimate consideration of all this great pine family, so peculiarly valuable to mankind, and the use of some of the pines and spruces about the home for the steady cheer of green they so fully provide. 72 Apples ' N TELA Ho' remember one of the ad- monitions of my youth, brought upon me by an attempt to take apple-blos- soms from a tree in bloom because they were beautiful. I was told that it was wrong to pluck for any purpose, the flowers of fruit trees, because the _ possible fruitage might thereby he reduced. ‘Viggt is, feeding the eye was improper, but it was always in order to conserve all the possibilities for another organ of the body. .In those days we had not learned that nature provides against contingen- cies, and that not one-tenth of all the _ blos- “set” as much soms would be needed to fruit as the tree could possibly mature. The*app:e, well called the king: of fruits, is worthy of all admiration as a fruit; but I do “not see why that need interfere in the least with its consideration as an object of beauty. On the contrary, such consideration is 75 GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES all the better for the apple, which is {ia only most desirable and pleasing in its relation to the dessert, the truly celebrated American pie, the luscious dumpling of the housewife, and the Italian’s fruit-stand of our cities, but is at the same time a benefaction to the eye and the sense of beauty, in tree, in blossom, and in fruit. It is of the esthetic value of the applend would write, leaving its supreme place in pomology unassailed. Look at the young apple tree in the “nursery row,” where it has been growing a year since it was “budded”—that is, mysteriously changed from the wild and untamed fruit of nature to the special variety designed by the nurseryman. It is a straight, shapely wand, in most varieties, though it is curious to find that some apples, notably the favorite Rhode Island Greening, start in promptly to be picturesquely crooked and twisty. As it grows and branches under the cultivation and guidance of the orchardist, it maintains a lusty, hearty aspect, its yellowish, reddish or brownish twigs—again according to variety—spreading out to the sun and the 76 APPICES air freely. A decade passes, and the sparse showing of bloom that has decorated it each spring gradually gives place to a great glory of flowers. The tree is about to bear, and it assumes the character of maturity; for while it grows on soberly for many years, there is now a spreading, a sort of relaxation, very different from the vigorous upshooting of its early youth, After. 2 crop -ot two, the tree has Become, to’ .the . eye, the “familiar. orchard member, and it leans a little from the blasts of winter, twists aside from the perpendicular, spreads comfortably over a great expanse of ground, and settles down to its long, useful, and truly beautiful life. While the young orchard is trim and handsome, I confess to a greater liking for the rugged old trees that have followed blos- som with fruit in unstinted profusion for a meneration..... There. is a certain . character «of sturdy good-will about these substantial stems that the clinging snows only accentuate in winter. The framework of limb and twig is fecy wditterent. from? that ..of the. ‘other - ‘trees, and the twisty lines seem to mean warmth vive JOVUIM Ur pieyoo adde uy APPLES and cheer, even against a frosty sky. And these old veterans are house trees, too—they do not suggest the forest or the broad expanse of nature, but, instead, the proximity of man and the home, the comfortable summer after- noon under their copious leafage, the great piles of ruddy-cheeked fruit in autumn. I need hardly say anything of the apple- blossoms, for those who read these words are almost certain to have long appreciated their delicately fragrant blush and white loveliness. he, apricot andthe cherry. -are~ the) first . of the fruit trees to sing the spring song, and they cover themselves with white, in advance of any sign of green leaves on their twigs. The apple has an advantage; coming more deliberately, the little pink buds are set amidst the soft greens of the opening foliage, and the leaves and flowers expand together in their symphony of color and fragrance. The grass has grown lush by this time, the dande- lions are punctuating it with gold, and _ every- thing is in the full riot of exuberant spring- time. But there are apples and apples and apples. 79 GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES Even the plain orchard gives us a difference in flowers, as well as in tree aspect. Notice the trees this coming May; mark the flat, white flowers on one tree, the cup-shaped, pink-veined blooms on another. Follow both through the fruiting, and see whether the sweeter flower brings the more sugary fruit. This fact ascertained, perhaps it may be fol- lowed up by observation of the distinctive color of the twigs and young branches—for there are wide differences in this respect, ‘and the canny tree- grower knows his pets afar. Perhaps there. is. a “crab”. 1 oti orchard, ready to give the greatest burst of bloom—for the crab-apple flower is usually finer and more fragrant than any other of the cultivated forms. It is an especial refuge of the birds and the bees, you will find, and it invites them with its rare fragrance and deeper blush, so that they may work all the more earnestly at the pollination without which ll this richness of bloom would be ineffective in nature’s reproductive scheme. This same crab-apple is soon to be, as its brilliant fruit matures, a notable object of 80 When the apple trees blossom beauty, for few ornamental trees can vie with . us) display of shining color. There’ was a great old crab right in the flower garden of my boyhood home, amid quaint box-trees, snowballs and lilacs. Lilies-of-the-valley flour- ished in its shadow, the delicate bleeding- heart mingled with old-fashioned irises and peonies at its feet. From early spring until , 81 GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH: THE TREES mid-August the crab-apple held court of beauty there—and an always hungry boy often found something in addition to beauty in the red and yellow fruits that were acid but aromatic. With a little attention, if one would plant crab-apples for their loveliness of fruit hue and form, a fine contrast of color may be had; ‘for some varieties are perfect “tn egress yellow, against others in deepest scarlet, bloom- covered with blue haze, and yet others which carry all the colors from cream to crimson— the latter as the warm sun paints deeper. Why do we not plant more fruit trees for beauty? Not one of our familiar fruits will fail us in this respect, if so considered. The apricot will often have its white flowers open to match the purity of the last snow, the cherry will follow with a burst of bloom, the apples and crab-apples will continue the show, aided by plum and pear and peach, and the quince —ah, there’s a flower in a green enamel setting !—will close the blooming-time. But the cherry fruits now redden in shining round- ness, the earlier apples throw rich gleams of 82 APPLIES color “te- the’ eye, and there is: chromatic beauty until frost bids the last russets leave their stems, leaving bare the framework of the trees, to teach us in lines of symmetry and efficiency how strength and elegance are com- bined in nature’s handiwork. Do you fear that some of the fruit may be taken? What o: it? Plant for beauty, and the fruit is all extra— give it away freely, and pass on to others some of God’s good gifts, to your own true happiness ! There is another crab-apple that is dis- tinctive in its elegance, color and fragrance. It is the true “wild crab” of Eastern North America, and one who makes its acquaintance in blooming time will never forget it. The tree is not large, and it is likely to be set with crooked, thorny branches; but the flowers! Deep pink or rosy red chalices, rather longer than the commonplace apple-blossom, and hanging on long and slender stems in a cer- tain picturesquely stiff disposition, they are a joy for the senses of sight and _ fragrance. This notable native may be found on rich slopes and in dry glades—it is not fond of 83 in bloom The Spectabilis crab wr PLES swamps. It is grown by some enlightened nurserymen, too, and can well be planted in the home grounds to their true adornment. The blossoms give way to form handsome yellow fruits, about an inch in diameter, which are themselves much more ornamental than edible, for even the small boy will not investigate a second time the bitter flesh. I have heard that a cider of peculiar “hardness” and potency, guaranteed to unsettle the firm- est head, is made from these acid fruits—but I have not found it necessary to extend my tree studies in that direction. The states west of Kansas do not know this lovely wild crab, to which the _ botanists give a really euphonious designation as Pyrus coronaria. ‘There is a prairie-states crab- apple, which I have never: seen, but. which, I am told, has nothing like the beauty of our exquisite Eastern native. This Western species lacks the long stem and the bright color of the flowers of our favorite, and _ its fruits, while quite as viciously sour, are a dull and greasy green. The great West has many other things, but we have the wild crab-apple. 85 GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES Rather between, as to beauty, is the native crab-apple of the Southland, which is known as the Soulard crab. It is not as attractive as our own Eastern gem, a pure native pos- session, and one which our foreign friends envy us. Curiously enough, our own fruiting apple is not a native of America. It was at a meet- ing of a New England pomological association that I heard, several years: ago, an Oold@ imam of marvelous memory and power of observa- tion tell of his recollections of seventy years, notable among which was his account of see- ing the first good apples, as a boy, during a visit in the state of New York. Think of it! the most widely grown and beautiful of all our fruits hardly older than the railroad in America! We owe the apples we eat to Europe, for the start, the species being probably of Himalayan origin. America has greatly developed the apple, however, as one who has»looked over the fruit tables at any great exposition will promptly testify, and nearly all our really good varieties are of American origin. Moreover, we are the greatest apple-growers in the world, 86 Fruits of the wild crab and the yearly production probably exceeds a hundred millions of barrels. The curious story of “Johnny Appleseed” is given us by historians, who tell us of this semi-religious enthusiast who roamed _ barefoot over the wilds of Ohio and Indiana a century ago, sowing apple-seeds in the scattered clear- ings, and living to see the trees bearing fruit, selections from which probably are interwoven among the varieties of today. New varieties of 87 GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES apples, by the way, come from seeds sown, and trees grown from them, with a bare chance that one in ten thousand may be worth keeping. When a variety seems thus worthy, “buds” or “scions” from the original tree are “budded” or “grafted” by the nurseryman into young seedling trees, which are thus changed into the selected sort. To sow the seeds of your favorite Baldwin does not imply that you will get Baldwin trees, by any means; you will more likely have a partial reversion to the acid and bitter original species. It is not only for the fruit that we are indebted to the Old World, but also for some distinctively beautiful and most ornamental va- rieties of the apple, not by any means as well known among us as they ought to be. The nurserymen sell as an ornamental small tree a form known as “Parkman’s double - flowering crab,” which produces blooms of much beauty, like delicate little roses. Few of, them, how- ever, know of the glorious show that the spring brings where there is a proper planting of the Chinese and Japanese crab-apples, with some other hybrids and varieties. To readers in New 88 APPLES England a pilgrimage to Boston is always in order. In the Public Gardens are superb speci- mens of these crab-apples from the Orient, as well as those native to this continent, and for several weeks in May they may be enjoyed. They are enjoyed by the Bostonians, who are in this, as in many things, better served by their authorities than is any other American city. What other city, for instance, gives its people such a magnificent spring show of hyacinths, tulips, daffodils and the like? It is at the wonderful Arnold Arboretum, that Mecca of tree-lovers just outside of Bos- ton and really within its superbly managed park system, that the greatest show of the “pyrus family,” as the apples and pears are botani- cally called, may be found. Here have been gathered the lovely blooming trees of all the hardy world, to the delight of the eye and the nose, and the education of the mind. To me the most impressive of all was a wonder- ful Siberian crab (one must look for Pyrus baccata on the label, as the Arboretum folks are not in love with “common” names) close by the little greenhouses. Its round head was 89 GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES purely white, with no hint of pink, and the mass of bloom that covered it was only punc- tuated by the green of the expanding leaves. The especial elegance of this crab was in its whiteness, and that elegance was not diminished by the later masses of little yellow and red, almost translucent, fruits. A somewhat smaller tree is commonly called the Chinese flowering apple, and its early flowers remind one strongly of the beauty of our own wild crab, as they are deeper in color than most of the crabs, being almost coral-red in bud. This “spectabilis,” as it is familiarly called, is a gem, as it opens the season of the apple blooms with its burst of pink richness. The beauty-loving Japanese have a festival at the time of the cherry-blooming—and it is altogether a festival of beauty, not connected with the food that follows the flowers. They actually dare to cut the blossoms, too, for adornment, and all the populace take time to drink in the message of the spring. Will we workaday Americans ever dare to “waste” so much time, and go afield to absorb God’s provision of soul and sense refreshment in the go : NT =e Ss id . hat oe © ie eat By, 4 . 15 “de . The beauty of a fruiting apple branch GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES spring, forgetting for the time our shops and desks, our stores and marts? Professor Sargent, that deep student of trees who has built himself a monument, which is also a beneficence to all mankind, in the great volumes of his “Silva of North America,” lives not far from Boston, and he loves especially that jewel of the apple family which, for want of a common name, | must designate scientifi- cally as Pyrus floribunda. On his own magnif- icent estate, as well as at the Arboretum, this superb shrub or small tree riots in rosy beauty in early spring. While the leaves do come with these flowers, they are actually crowded back out of apparent sight by the straight wands of rose-red blooms, held by the twisty little tree at every angle and in indescribable beauty. If the visitor saw nothing but this Floribunda apple —“abundant flowering” sure enough—on his pilgrimage, he might well be satisfied, especially if he them and ~ there resolved to see it again, either as he planted it at home or journeyed hither another spring for the enlargement of his soul. There are other of these delightful crabs or 92 WE PILES apples to be enjoyed— Ringo, Kaido, Toringo —nearly all of Japanese origin, all of distinct beauty, and all continuing that beauty in hand- some but inedible fruits that hang most of the summer. My tree-loving friends can well study these, and, I hope, plant them, instead of repeating continually the monotonously familiar shrubs and trees of ordinary commerce. But I have not spoken enough of one nota- ble feature of the every-day apple tree that we may see without a journey to the East. The fully set fruiting branch of an apple tree in health and vigor, properly nurtured and pro- tected against fungous disease by modern “spraying,” is a thing of beauty in its form and color. See those deep red Baldwins shine overhead in the frosty air of early fall; note the elegance of form and striping on the leathery- skinned Ben Davis; appreciate true apples of ma Sct In oteen enamel on a tree of the suuny Bellefleur! These m the fall; but it’ is hardly full summer before the closely set branches of Early Harvest are as beautiful as any orange-tree, or the more upright Red Astrachan is ablaze with fruit of red and 93 GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES yellow. Truly, an apple orchard might be arranged to give a series of pictures of changing beauty of color and growth from early spring until fall frost, and then to follow with a daily panorama of form and line against snow and sky until the blossoms peeped forth again. Let us learn, if we do not already love the apple tree, to love it for its beauty all the year! 94 R = towt W B Q Lar t re | 993 7 ek SAM ty etn et pti pote ara ; uy 4 dgyas * j y | tllows and yoplars YY the rivers of Babylon, there we sat y down, yea, we wept, when we remem- | bered Zion. -Upon the willows in the Hs thereof we manced- our harps.” ‘Thus sang the Psalmist of the sorrows»of the exiles in Babylon, and his song has»fastened the name f ‘of the great and wicked city upon one of the most familiar willows, while also making it "weep"; for the common weeping willow is botanically named Salix Babylonica. It. may be that the forlorn Jews did hang their harps upon the tree we know as the weep- ing willow, that species being credited to Asia as.a place of origin; but it is open to doubt, for the very obvious ,reason that the weeping willow is distinctly unadapted to use as a harp- rack, and one is at a loss to know just how the instruments in question would have been hung thereon. It is probable that the willows along the rivers of Babylon were of other a7 GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES species, and that the connection of the city of the captivity and the tears of the exiles with the long, drooping branches of the noble tree which has thus been sorrowfully named was a purely sentimental one. Indeed, the weeping willow is also called Napoleon’s willow, because the great Corsican found much pleasure in a superb willow of the same species which stood on the lonely prison isle of St. Helena, and from twigs of which many trees in the United States have been grown. The willow family presents great contrasts, both physical and sentimental. It is a symbol both of grief and of grace. The former char- acterization is undoubtedly because of the allu- sion of the one hundred and _thirty-seventh Psalm, as quoted above, thoughtlessly extended through the centuries; and the latter, as when a beautiful and slender woman is said to be of “willowy” form, obviously because of the real grace of the long, swinging wands of the same tree. I might hint that a better reason for making the willow symbolize grief is because charcoal made from its twigs and branches is an important and almost essential ingredient of 98 PELELOY S AND POPLARS gunpowder, through which a sufficiency of grief has undoubtedly entered the world! Willow twigs seem the very essence of fra- mility, as they break from the parent tree at a touch; and yet one of the willows furnishes the tough, pliable and enduring withes from which are woven the baskets of the world. The wil- lows, usually thin in branch, sparse of some- what pale foliage, of so-called mournful mien, are yet bursting with vigor and life; indeed, the spread and the value of the family is by reason of this tenacity and virility, which makes a broken twig, floating on the surface of a turbid stream, take root and grow on a sandy bank where nothing else can maintain itself, wresting existence and drawing strength and beauty from the very element whose ravages of flood and current it bravely withstands. Apparently ephemeral in wood, growing quickly and perishing as quickly, the willows nevertheless supply us with an important pre- servative element, extracted from their bitter juices. Salicylic acid, made from willow bark, prevents change and arrests decay, and it is an important medical agent as well. 99 A weeping willow in early spring PISO AND POPLARS Flexible and seemingly delicate as the little tree is when but just established, there is small promise of the rugged and sturdy trunk that in a few years may stand where the: chance twig lodged. And the color of the willows— ah! there’s a point for full enthusiasm, for this faumly of oerief_-furnishes a—cheerful note for every month in the year, and runs the whole scale of greens, grays, yellows and browns, and even adds to the winter landscape touches of blazing orange and bright red across the snow. Before ever one has thought seriously of the coming of spring, the long branchlets of the weeping willow have quickened into a hint of lovely yellowish green, and those same branch- lets will be holding their green leaves against a wintry blast when most other trees have given up their foliage under the frost’s urgency. Often have the orange-yellow twigs of the golden osier illumined a somber country-side for me as I looked from the car window; and _ close by may be seen other willow bushes of brown, @uees.seray. and: even’ purple, to. add: to the color compensation of the season. Then may come into the view, as one flies past, a great IOI GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES old weeping willow rattling its bare twigs in the wind; and, if a stream is passed, there are sure to be seen on its banks the sturdy trunks of the white and the black willows at least. Think of an average landscape with the willows eliminated, and there will appear a great vacancy not readily filled by another tree. The weeping willow has always made a strong appeal to me, but never one of simple grief or sorrow. Its expression is rather of great dig- nity, and I remember watching in somewhat of awe one which grew near my childhood’s home, as its branches writhed and twisted in a violent rain-storm, seeming then fairly to agonize, so tossed and buffeted were they by the wind. But soon the storm ceased, the sun shone on the rounded head of the willow, turning the raindrops to quickly vanishing diamonds, and the great tree breathed only a gentle and benignant peace. When, in later years, I came to know the moss-hung live-oak of the South- land, the weeping willow assumed to me a new dignity and value in the northern landscape, and I have strongly resented the attitude of a noted writer on “Art Out of Doors” who says 102 in a storm llow ing wi The weep GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES of it: “I never once have seen it where it did not hurt the effect of its surroundings, or at least, if it stood apart from other trees, where some tree of another species would not have looked far better.” One of the great merits of the tree, its difference of habit, its variation from the ordinary, is thus urged against it. I have spoken of the basket willow, which is scientifically Salix viminalis, and an_ intro- duction from Europe, as indeed are many of the family. In my father’s nursery grew a great patch of basket willows, annually cut to the ground to make a profusion of “sprouts,” from which were cut the “tying willows” used to bind firmly together for shipment bundles of young trees. It was an achievement to be able to take a _ six-foot withe, and, deftly twisting the tip of it under the heel to a mass of flexible fiber, tie this twisted portion into a substantial loop; and to have this novel wooden rope then endure the utmost pull of a vigorous man, as he braced his feet against the bundle of trees in binding the withe upon it, gave an impression of anything but weak- ness on the part of the willow. 104 PEO S AND: -POPLARS Who has not admired the soft gray silky buds of the “pussy” willow, swelling with the spring’s impulse, and ripening quickly into a “catkin” loaded with golden pollen? Nowadays the shoots of this willow are “forced” into bud by the florists, and sold in the cities in great quantities; but really to see it one must find the low tree or bush by a stream in the woods, or along the roadside, with a chance to note its fullness of blossom. It is finest just maen the hepaticas are at their bluest on the warm hillsides; and, one sunny afternoon of a spring journey along the north branch of the Susquehanna river, I did not know which of the two conspicuous ornaments of the deeply wooded bank made me most anxious to jump from the too swiftly moving train. This pussy-willow has pleasing leaves, and is a truly ornamental shrub or small tree which will flourish quite well in a dry back yard, as I have reason to know. One bright day in February I found a pussy-willow tree, with its deep purple buds showing not a hint of the life within. The few twigs brought home quickly expanded when placed in water, and 105 A pussy-willow in a_ park PTE LOWS AND, POPLARS gave us their forecast of the spring. One twig was, out of curiosity, left in the water after the catkins had faded, merely to see what would happen. It bravely sent forth leaves, while at the base little white rootlets appeared. Its vigor appealing to us, it was planted in an arid spot im our back yard, and it, is now, after a year and a half, a handsome, slender young tree that will give us a whole family of silken pussy-buds to stroke and admire another spring. This same little tree is called also the glaucous willow, and it is botanically Salix discolor. It is more distinct than some _ others of the family, for the willow is a great mixer. The tree expert who will unerringly distin- guish between the red oak and the scarlet oak by the precise angle of the spinose mar- gins of the leaves (how I admire an accuracy I do not possess!) will balk at which is crack willow, or white willow, or yellow or blue willow. The abundant vigor and vitality and freedom of the family, and the fact that ‘it is of what is known as the diccious habit —that is, the flowers are. not complete, fertile and infertile flowers being borne on separate trees 107 Blossoms of the —make it most ready to hybridize. The pollen of the black willow may fertilize the flower of the white willow, with a result that certainly tends to grayness on the worrying head of the botanist who, in after years, is trying to locate the result of the cross! There is much variety in the willow flowers —and I wonder how many observers really notice any other willow “blossoms” than those of the showy pussy?