Various - The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 46, August, 1861

The subject of Trees cannot be exhausted by treating them as individuals or species, even with a full enumeration of their details. Some trees possess but little interest, except as they are grouped in assemblages of greater or less extent. A solitary Fir or Spruce, for example, when standing in an inclosure or by the roadside, is a stiff and disagreeable object; but a deep forest of Firs is not surpassed in grandeur by one of any other species. These trees must be assembled in extensive groups to affect us agreeably; while the Elm, the Oak, and other wide-spreading trees, are grand objects of sight, when standing alone, or in any other situation.

I will not detain the reader with a prolix account of the classification of trees in assemblages, but simply glance at a few points. The Romans used four different words to express these distinctions. When they spoke of a wood with reference to its timber, they used the word silva ; sal[Transcriber's note: remainder of word illegible] , was a collection of wild-wood in the mountains; nemus , a smaller collection, partaking of cultivation, and answering to our ideas of a grove; lucus was a wood, of any description, which was set apart for religious purposes, or dedicated to some Deity. In the English language we can make these distinctions intelligible only by the use of adjectives. A forest is generally understood to be a wild-wood of considerable extent, retaining all its natural features. A grove is a smaller assemblage of trees, not crowded together, but possessing very generally their full proportions, and divested of their undergrowth. Other inferior groups are designated as copse and thicket . The words park , clump , arboretum , and the like, are mere technical terms, that do not come into use in a general description of Nature.

Groves, fragments of forest, and inferior groups only are particularly interesting in landscape. An unbroken forest of wide extent makes but a dreary picture and an unattractive journey, on account of its gloomy uniformity. Hence the primitive state of the earth, before it was modified by human hands, must have been sadly wanting in those romantic features that render a scene the most attractive. Nature must be combined with Art, however simple and rude, and associated with human life, to become deeply affecting to the imagination. But it is not necessary that the artificial objects of a landscape should be of a grand historical description, to produce these agreeable effects: humble objects, indeed, are the most consonant with Nature's sublime aspects, because they manifest no seeming endeavor to rival them. In the deep solitary woods, the sight of a woodman's hut in a clearing, of a farmer's cottage, or of a mere sheepfold, immediately awakens a tender interest, and enlivens the scene with a tinge of romance.

The earth must have been originally covered with forest, like the American continent in the time of Columbus. This has in all cases disappeared, as population has increased; and groves, fragments of wild-wood, small groups, and single trees have taken its place. Great Britain, once renowned for its extensive woods, now exhibits only smaller assemblages, chiefly of an artificial character, which are more interesting to the landscape-gardener than to the lover of Nature's primitive charms. Parks, belts, arboretums, and clipped hedge-rows, however useful as contributing to pleasure, convenience, or science, are not the most interesting features of wood-scenery. But the customs of the English nobility, while they have artificialized all the fairest scenes in the country, and ruined them for the eyes of the poet or the painter, have been the means of preserving some valuable forests, which under other circumstances would have been utterly destroyed. A deer-forest belonging to the Duke of Athol comprises four hundred thousand acres; the forest of Farquharson contains one hundred and thirty thousand acres; and several others of smaller extent are still preserved as deer-parks. Thus do the luxuries of the rich tend, in some instances, to preserve those natural objects of which they are in general the principal destroyers.

Immense forests still overspread a great part of Northern Russia, through which it has been asserted that a squirrel might traverse hundreds of miles, without touching the ground, by leaping from tree to tree. Since the general adoption of railroad travelling, however, great ravages have been made in these forests, and not many years will be required to reduce them to fragments. In the South of Europe a great part of the territory is barren of woods, and the climate has suffered from this cause, which has diminished the bulk of the streams and increased the severity of droughts. But Nature has established a partial remedy for the evil arising from the imprudent destruction of forests, in lofty and precipitous mountains, that serve not only to perpetuate moisture for the supply of rain to the neighboring countries, but contribute also to preserve the timber in their inaccessible ravines. Were it not for this safeguard of mountains, the South of Europe would ere this have become a desert, from the destruction of its forests, like Sahara, whose barrenness was anciently produced by the same cause.

Most of the territory of North America is still comparatively a wilderness; but in the United States the forests have been so extensively invaded, that they seldom exhibit any distinct outlines, and few of them possess the character of unique assemblages. They are but scattered fragments of the original forest, through which the settlers have made their irregular progress from east to west, diversifying it with roads, farms, and villages. The recent clearings are palisaded by tall trees, exhibiting a naked outline of skeleton timber, without any attractions. It is in the old States only that we see anything like a picturesque grouping of woods; and here, the absence of art and design, in the formation and relative disposition of these groups, gives them a peculiar interest to the lover of natural scenery. There is a charm, therefore, in New-England landscape, existing nowhere else in equal degree; but this is rapidly giving place to those artificial improvements that are destined to ruin the face of the country, which owes its present attractions to the spontaneous efforts of Nature, modified only by the unartistic operations of a simple agriculture.

Travelling in a forest, though delightful as an occasional recreation, is, when continued many hours in succession, unless one be engaged in scientific researches, very monotonous and wearisome. Even the productions of a forest are not so various as those of a tract in which all the different conditions of wildness and culture are intermingled. A view of an unbroken wilderness from an elevation is equally monotonous. Wood must be blended with other forms of landscape, with pasture and tillage, with roads, houses, and farms, to convey to the mind the most agreeable sensations. The monotony of unbroken forest-scenery is partially relieved in the autumn by the mixed variety of tints belonging to the different trees; but this does not wholly subdue the prevailing expression of dreariness and gloom.

Nothing can surpass the splendor of this autumnal pageantry, as beheld in the Green Mountains of Vermont and Western Massachusetts, in the early part of October. This region abounds in Sugar-Maples, which are very beautifully tinted, and in a sufficient variety of other trees to delight the eye with every specious hue. A remarkable appearance may always be observed in Maples. Some trees of this kind are entirely green, with the exception perhaps of a single bough, which is of a bright crimson or scarlet. Sometimes the lower half of the foliage will be green, while the upper part is entirely crimsoned, resembling a spire of flame rising out of a mass of verdure. In other cases this order is reversed, and the tree presents the appearance of a green spire rising out of flame. We see no end to the variety of these apparently capricious phenomena, which some have explained by supposing the colored branches to be affected with partial disease that hastens their maturity: but this can hardly be admitted as the true explanation, as such appearances exist when no other symptoms of malady can be discovered.