Chapter 3

I wonder how many of my readers realize that an exquisite bit of real hemlock forest lies not five miles from Boston Common? At the Arnold Arboretum, that noble collection of trees and plants, "Hemlock Hill" is assuming deeper majesty year after year as its trees gain age and size. It presents exactly the pure 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 advantage, 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 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 even 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 character. The white pine is perhaps most familiar 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. From its first essay as a seedling, with its original cluster 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 object, and I have had some thrills of joy at finding this splendid common thing planted in well-placed groups on the grounds of wealthy men, instead of some Japanese upstart with a name a yard long and a truly crooked Oriental disposition! 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 pines on the shores of a pond deep in the Adirondacks emphasized again for me one May day the majesty of this beneficent friend of mankind; and yet another old pine monarch against the sunset sky pointed the westward way from the picturesque Cornell campus, and alas! also pointed the danger to even this one unreplaceable tree when modern "enterprise" 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.

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-fountains springing up from the ground along the railroads. These 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 gracefully 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, emphasized strongly when seen at its best either in the uncut forest, or in a planted avenue. We of 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 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 somewhat 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 dangers 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 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 kindly to the lungs; hark to the music of the wind in their tops, telling of health and purity, 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 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 soft 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; but, more 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 think of 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 to the eye only hides the dainty, white-lined interior surface of those same leaves. To the outside, a somber dignity, unassailable, untouched 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 yellowish 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 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 is rich in the true balsamic odor; and this, again, is 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 perhaps the most familiar of all the native evergreens. 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 supplies a most perfect background in the favorite Conewago park, a purely natural reservation of things beautiful along the Pennsylvania railroad. Its lead-pencil 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 magnificent 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.

Apples

Well do I remember one of the admonitions of my youth, brought upon me by an attempt to take apple-blossoms 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 be reduced. That 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 contingencies, and that not one-tenth of all the blossoms would be needed to "set" as much fruit as the tree could possibly mature.

The apple, 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 all the better for the apple, which is not 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 apple I 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 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 a crop or 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 blossom with fruit in unstinted profusion for a generation. 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 very different from that of the other trees, and the twisty lines seem to mean warmth 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 afternoon 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. The apricot and the 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 dandelions are punctuating it with gold, and everything is in the full riot of exuberant springtime.

But there are apples and apples and apples. 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 followed 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" in the old 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 all 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 beauty, for few ornamental trees can vie with its 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 flourished in its shadow, the delicate bleeding-heart mingled with old-fashioned irises and peonies at its feet. From early spring until 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 in clear 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 roundness, the earlier apples throw rich gleams of color to 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 combined in nature's handiwork. Do you fear that some of the fruit may be taken? What of 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 distinctive 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 certain 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 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 firmest 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.

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 possession, and one which our foreign friends envy us.

Curiously enough, our own fruiting apple is not a native of America. It was at a meeting of a New England pomological association that I heard, several years ago, an old man of marvelous memory and power of observation tell of his recollections of seventy years, notable among which was his account of seeing 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, and the yearly production probably exceeds a hundred millions of barrels.