The indigenous trees of America, or rather of the Atlantic side of this continent, are remarkable not only for their superior autumnal hues, but also for the shorter period during which the foliage remains on the trees and retains its verdure. Our fruit-trees, which are all exotics, retain their foliage long after our forest-trees are leafless; and if we visit an arboretum in the latter part of October, we may select the American from the foreign species, by observing that the latter are still green, while the others are either entirely denuded, or in that colored array which immediately precedes the fall of the leaf. The exotics may likewise be distinguished in the spring by their precocity,their leaves being out a week or ten days earlier than the leaves of our trees. Hence, if we take both the spring and autumn into the account, the foreign, or rather the European species, show a period of verdure of three or four weeks' greater duration than the American species. Many of the former, like the Weeping Willow, do not lose their verdure, nor shed their leaves, until the first wintry blasts of November freeze them upon their branches and roll them into a crisp.
In a natural forest there is a very small proportion of perfectly formed trees; and these occur only in such places as permit some individuals to stand isolated from the rest, and to spread out their branches to their full extent. When we walk in a forest, we observe several conditions which are favorable to this full expansion of their forms. On the borders of a pond or morass, or of an extensive quarry, the trees extend their branches into the opening, but, as they are cramped on the opposite side, they are only half developed. But this expansion takes place on the side that is exposed to view: hence the incomparable beauty of a wood on the borders of a pond, or on the banks of a river, as viewed from the water; also of a wood on the outside of an islet in a lake or river.
Fissures or cavities sometimes occur in a large rock, allowing a solitary tree that has become rooted there to attain its full proportions. It is in such places, and on sudden eminences that rise above the forest-level, on a precipice, for example, that overlooks the surrounding wood, that the forest shows individual trees possessing the characters of standards, like those we see by the roadsides and in the open field. We must conclude, therefore, that a primitive forest must contain but a very small proportion of perfect trees: these are, for the most part, the occupants of land cleared by cultivation, and may be found also among the sparse growth of timber that has come up in pasture land, where the constant browsing of cattle prevents the formation of any dense assemblages.
In the opinion of Whately, grandeur is the prevailing character of a forest, and beauty that of a grove. This distinction may seem to be correct, when such collections of wood exhibit all their proper characters: but perfectly unique forms of wood are seldom found in this country, where almost all the timber is of spontaneous growth. We have genuine forests; but other forms of wood are of a mixed character, and we have rather fragments of forest than legitimate groves. In the South of Europe many of the woods are mere plantations, in which the trees were first set in rows, with straight avenues, or vistas, passing directly through them from different points. In an assemblage of this kind there can be nothing of that interesting variety observed in a natural forest, and which is manifestly wanting even in woods planted with direct reference to the attainment of these natural appearances. "It is curious to see," as Gilpin remarks, "with what richness of invention, if I may so speak, Nature mixes and intermixes her trees, and shapes them into such a wonderful variety of groups and beautiful forms. Art may admire and attempt to plant and to form combinations like hers; but whoever observes the wild combinations of a forest and compares them with the attempts of Art has little taste, if he do not acknowledge with astonishment the superiority of Nature's workmanship."
When a tract is covered with a dense growth of tall trees, especially of Pines, which have but little underbrush, the wood represents overhead a vast canopy of verdure supported by innumerable lofty pillars. No one could enter these dark solitudes without feeling a deep impression of sublimity, especially if it be an hour of general stillness of the winds. The voices of animals and of birds, particularly the hammering of the woodpecker, serve to magnify our perceptions of grandeur. A very slight sound, during a calm in one of these deep woods, like the ticking of a clock in a vast hall, has a distinctness almost startling, especially if there be but little undergrowth. These feeble sounds afford one a more vivid sense of the magnitude of the place than louder sounds, that differ less from those we hear in the open plain. The canopy of foliage overhead and the absence of undergrowth are favorable to those reverberations which are so perceptible in a Pine wood.
In a grove we experience different sensations. Here pleasantness and cheerfulness are combined, and the feeling of grandeur is excited only perhaps by the sight of some noble tree. In a grove the trees are generally well formed, many of them being nearly perfect in their proportions. Their shadows are cast separately upon the ground, which is green beneath them as in an orchard. If we look upon them from a near eminence, we observe a variety of outlines, and may identify the different species by their shape, while in the forest we see one unbroken mass of foliage. A wild-wood is frequently converted into a grove by clearing it of undergrowth and leaving the space a grassy lawn. It may then yield us shade, coolness, and other agreeable sensations of a cultivated wood, but the individual trees always retain their gaunt and imperfect shapes.
The greater part of the woodland of this country partakes of the characters of both forest and grove, exhibiting a pleasant admixture of each, combined with pasture and thicket. In Great Britain the woods are chiefly groves and parks: a wild-wood of spontaneous growth is now rare in that country, once renowned for the extent and beauty of its forests. Most of our American woods are fragments of forest, particularly in the Western States, where they stand out prominently, and deform the landscape by presenting a perpendicular front of naked pillars, unrelieved by any foliage. They remind one of those houses, in the city, which have been cut asunder to widen a street, leaving the interior rooms and partition-walls exposed to view. These sections of wood are the grand picturesque deformity of a country lately cleared. In the older settlements, a recent growth of wood has in many instances come up outside of these palisades, serving in a measure to conceal their baldness.
The most lovely appearances in landscape are caused by the spontaneous growth of miscellaneous trees, some in dense assemblages and some in scattered groups, with here and there a few single trees standing in open space. Such is the scenery of considerable portions of the Atlantic States, both North and South. These varied assemblages of wood and shrubbery are the characteristic features of the landscape in the older villages of New England, and indeed of all the States that were established before the Revolution. But the New-England system of farmingso much abhorred by those who wish to bring agriculture to such a state of improvement as shall make it profitable exclusively to capitalistshas been more favorable to the sylvan beauty of the landscape than that of any other part of the continent. At the South, especially, where agriculture is carried on in large plantations, we see wide fields of tillage, and forest groups of corresponding size. But the small and independent farming of New Englandas favorable to general happiness as it is to beautiful sceneryhas produced a charming variety of wood, pasture, and tillage, so agreeably intermixed that one is never weary of looking upon it. The varied surface of the landscape, in the uneven parts which are not mountainous, has increased these advantages, producing an endless multitude of those limited views which may be termed picturesque.
In no other part of the country are the minor inequalities of surface so frequent as in New England: I allude to that sort of ruggedness which is unfavorable to any "mammoth" system of agriculture, and plainly evinces that Nature and Providence have designed this part of the country for free and independent labor. Here little meadows, of a few acres in extent, are common, encircled by green pasture hills or by wood. A rolling surface is more favorable to grandeur of scenery; but nothing is more beautiful than landscape formed by hills rising suddenly out of perfect levels. As it is not my present purpose to treat of landscape in general, I will simply remark that the barrenness of a great part of the soil of the Eastern States is favorable to picturesque scenery. This may seem a paradoxical assertion to those who can see no beauty except in universal fatness; but unvaried luxuriance is fatal to variety of scenes, though it undoubtedly encourages the development of individual growth. An agreeable intermixture of various sylvan assemblages is one of the effects of a barren soil, containing numerous fertile tracts. Not having in general sufficient strength to produce timber, it covers itself with diverse groups of vegetation, corresponding with the varieties of soil and surface. Thus, in a certain degree, we are obliged to confess that beauty springs out of Nature's deficiencies.
We live in a latitude and upon a soil, therefore, which are favorable to the harmonious grouping of vegetation. As we proceed southward, we witness a constant increase of the number of species gathered together in a single group. Nature is more addicted at the North to the habit of classifying her productions and of assembling them in uniform phalanxes. The painter, on this account, finds more to interest the eye and to employ his pencil in the picturesque regions of frost and snow; while the botanist finds more to exercise his observation in the crowded variety that marks the region of perpetual summer.
But while vegetation is more generally social in high latitudes, several families of Northern trees are entirely wanting in this quality. Seldom is a forest composed chiefly of Elms, Locusts, or Willows. Oaks and Birches are associated in forests, Elms in groves, and Willows in small groups following the courses of streams. Those Northern trees which are most eminently social, including the two just named, are the Beech, the Maple, the Hickory, the coniferous trees, and some others; and by the predominance of any one kind the character of the soil may be partially determined. There is no tree that grows so abundantly in miry land, both North and South upon this continent, as the Red Maple. It occupies immense tracts of morass in the Middle States, and is the last tree which is found in swamps, according to Michaux, as the Birch is the last we meet in ascending mountains. The Sugar-Maple is confined mostly to the Northeastern parts of the continent. Poplars are not generally associated exclusively in forests; but at the point where the Ohio and the Mississippi mingle their waters are grand forests of Deltoid Poplars, that stamp upon the features of that region a very peculiar physiognomy.
The characteristics of different woods, composed chiefly of one family of trees, would make an interesting study; but it would be tiresome to enter minutely into their details. Some are distinguished by a superfluity, others by a deficiency of undergrowth. In general, Pine and Fir woods are of the latter description, differing in this respect from deciduous woods. These differences are most apparent in large assemblages of wood, which have a flora as well as a fauna of their own. The same shrubs and herbaceous plants, for example, are not common to Oak and to Pine woods. There is a difference also in the cleanness and beauty of their stems. The gnarled habit of the Oak is conspicuous even in the most crowded forest, and coniferous woods are apt to be disfigured by dead branches projecting from the bole. The Birch, the Poplar, and the Beech are remarkable for the straightness, evenness, and beauty of their shafts, when assembled in a dense wood.
Some of the most beautiful forests in high latitudes consist of White Canoe-Birches. We see them in Massachusetts only in occasional groups, but farther north, upon river-banks, they form woods of considerable extent and remarkable beauty; and with their tall shafts, and their smooth white bark, resembling pillars of marble, supporting a canopy of bright green foliage, on a light feathery spray, they constitute one of the picturesque attractions of a Northern tour. Nature seems to indicate the native habitat of this noble tree by causing its exterior to bear the whiteness of snow, and it would be difficult to estimate its importance to the aboriginal inhabitants of Northern latitudes. Yellow Birch woods are not inferior in their attractions: individual trees of this species are often distinguished among other forest timber by extending their feathery summits above the level of the other trees.
The small White Birch is never assembled in large forest groups. Like the Alder, it seems to be employed by Nature for the shading of her living pictures, and for producing those gradations which are the charm of spontaneous wood-scenery. In this part of the continent, a Pitch-Pine wood is commonly fringed with White Birches, and outside of these with a lower growth of Hazels, Cornels, and Vacciniums, uniting them imperceptibly with the herbage of the plain. The importance of this native embroidery is not sufficiently considered by those industrious plodders who are constantly destroying wayside shrubbery, as if it were the pest of the farm,nor by those "improvers," on the other hand, who wage an eternal warfare against little spontaneous groups of wood, as if they thought everything outside of the forest an intruder, if it was planted by accident, and had not cost money before it was placed there. Give me an old farm, with its stone-walls draped with Poison-Ivy and Glycine, and verdurous with a mixed array of Viburnums, Hazels, and other wild shrubbery, harboring thousands of useful birds, and smiling over the abundant harvests which they surround, before the finest artistical landscape in the world!
Pines are remarkably social in their habit, and cover immense tracts in high latitudes, extending southward, on this continent, as far as the very boundary of the tropics, where they are found side by side with the Dwarf Palm of Florida. But in the region of the true Palms the Pine is wanting. It is worthy of remark, however, that in the fossil vegetation of the Eocene world these two vegetable tribes are found associated. This fact, it seems to me, should be attributed to the mixing of the mountain Pines with the Palms of the sea-level, during that revulsion of Nature by which they were hurled into the same chaotic heap. We are not obliged to infer from their contiguity in these geological remains, that the two species ever flourished together in the same region.
Pine woods possess attractions of a peculiar kind: all lovers of Nature are enraptured with them, and there is a grandeur about them which is felt at once, when we enter them. Their dark verdure, their deep shade, their lofty height, and their branches which are ever mysteriously murmuring, as they are swayed by the wind, render them singularly solemn and sublime. This expression is increased by the hollow reverberating interior of the wood, caused by its clearness and freedom from underbrush. The ground beneath is covered by a matting of fallen leaves, making a smooth brown carpet, that renders a walk within its precincts as comfortable as in a garden. The foliage of the Pine is so hard and durable that in summer we always find the last autumn's crop lying upon the ground in a state of perfect soundness, and under it that of the preceding year only partially decayed. The foliage of two summers, therefore, lies upon the surface, checking the growth of humble vegetation, and permitting only certain species of plants to flourish with vigor.