Part 13

As an ornamental tree, all admirers of regularity and symmetry are generally partial to the Spruce. Gilpin was, however, no great admirer of the tree; but still he allows it to have had its peculiar beauties. "The Spruce Fir," he says, "is generally esteemed a more elegant tree than the Scotch pine; and the reason, I suppose, is because it often feathers to the ground, and grows in a more exact and regular shape: but this is a principal objection to it. It often wants both form and beauty. We admire its floating foliage, in which it sometimes exceeds all other trees; but it is rather disagreeable to see a repetition of these feathery strata, beautiful as they are, reared tier above tier, in regular order, from the bottom of a tree to the top. Its perpendicular stem, also, which has seldom any lineal variety, makes the appearance of the tree still more formal. It is not always, however, that the Spruce Fir grows with so much regularity. Sometimes a lateral branch, here and there taking the lead beyond the rest, breaks somewhat through the order commonly observed, and forms a few chasms, which have a good effect. When this is the case, the Spruce Fir ranks among picturesque trees. Sometimes it has as good an effect, and in many circumstances a better, when the contrast appears still stronger; when the tree is shattered by some accident, has lost many of its branches, and is scathed and ragged. A feathery branch, here and there, among broken stems, has often an admirable effect; but it must arise from some particular situation. In all circumstances, however, the Spruce Fir appears best either as a single tree, or unmixed with any of its fellows; for neither it, nor any of the spear-headed race, will ever form a beautiful clump without the assistance of other trees."

The Spruce Fir is raised from seed, which should be chosen from healthy vigorous trees. The young plant appears with from seven to nine cotyledons, but makes little progress till after the third year, when it begins to put out lateral branches. Its progress from this time, till its fifth or sixth year, is at the annual rate of about six inches, after which age its annual growth, in favourable soils, is very rapid, the leading shoot being frequently from two to three feet in length, and this increase it continues to support with undiminished vigour for forty or fifty years, many trees within that period attaining a height of from sixty to eighty feet. Its growth after this period is slower, and the duration of the tree, in its native habitats, is considered to range between one hundred and one hundred and fifty years.

THE SYCAMORE, OR GREATER MAPLE.

[_Acer[U] pseudo-platanus._ Nat. Ord.--_Aceraceæ_; Linn.--_Polyg. Monoec._]

[U] For the generic characters, see p. 139.

Turner, who wrote in 1551, considered the Sycamore as a stranger, or tree that had been introduced. On the Continent it is spread over the mountains of middle Europe; and is found in Switzerland, where it particularly abounds, growing at an elevation of from 2000 to 3000 feet above the level of the sea, where the soil is dry and of a good quality.

The Sycamore is "certainly a noble tree," vieing, in point of magnitude, with the oak, the ash, and other trees of the first rank. It presents a grand unbroken mass of foliage, contrasting well, in appropriate situations, with trees of a lighter and more airy character. It has round spreading branches, and a smooth ash-coloured bark, frequently broken into patches of different hues, by peeling off in large flakes, like the planes. The leaves have long foot-stalks, are four or five inches broad, palmate, with five acute, unequally serrated lobes; the middle one largest, pale or shining beneath. The flowers are green, the size of a currant blossom, disposed into axillary, pendulous, compound clusters; stamens of the barren flower twice as long as the corolla. Ovary downy, with broad-spreading wings. Selby observes that "from the strength of its spray, and the nature of its growth, which is stiff and angular, the Sycamore is especially calculated to act as a shelter or break-wind in exposed situations, whether it be upon the coast where it braves the cutting eastern blasts, or upon bleak and elevated tracts, subject to long continued and powerful winds; for even in such localities, provided the soil be dry, and of tolerable quality, it attains a respectable size, and shows an upright form, unconquered by the blast. It is, probably, for these peculiar and enduring qualities that we see it so frequently in the north of England and in Scotland planted by itself, or sometimes in company with the ash, around farm houses and cottages, in high and exposed situations." This custom is evidently alluded to by the Westmoreland poet, in his description of the landscape on the banks of the Wye:--

Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, That on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect The landscape with the quiet of the sky. The day is come when I again repose Here, under the dark Sycamore, and view These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard tufts, Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves Among the woods and copses, nor disturb The wild green landscape. Once again I see These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke, Sent up, in silence, from among the trees! With some uncertain notice, as might seem Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, Or of some hermit's cave, where by his fire The hermit sits alone. These beauteous forms, Through a long absence, have not been to me As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; And passing even into my purer mind, With tranquil restoration:--feelings, too, Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps, As have no slight or trivial influence On that best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect more sublime: that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery-- In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world Is lightened:--that serene and blessed mood, In which the affections gently lead us on, Until the breath of this corporeal frame, And even the motion of our human blood, Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things. If this Be but a vain belief, yet, O! how oft, In darkness, and amid the many shapes Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, Have hung upon the beatings of my heart, How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, O sylvan Wye! Thou wanderer thro' the woods, How often has my spirit turned to thee!

Wordsworth.

The Sycamore is not unfrequently planted in streets and before houses, on account of its spreading branches and thick shade, for which it bears a high reputation. Of this tree Sir T. D. Lauder says, "the spring tints are rich, tender, glowing, and harmonious. In summer, its deep green hue accords well with its grand and massy form; and the browns and dingy reds of its autumnal tints harmonize well with the other colours of the mixed grove, to which they give a depth of tone. It is a favourite Scotch tree, having been much planted about old aristocratic residences in Scotland."

The Sycamore, in the language of flowers, signifies curiosity, because it was supposed to be the "tree on which Zaccheus climbed to see Christ pass on his way to Jerusalem, when the people strewed leaves and branches of palm and other trees in his way, exclaiming, 'Hosanna to the Son of David!' The tree which is frequently called the Sycamore in the Bible, was not the species under description, _A. pseudo-platanus_, but a species of fig, _Ficus sycomorus_, a native of Egypt, where it is a timber-tree exceeding the middle size, and bearing edible fruit."

The common Sycamore is generally propagated by seed; and its varieties by layers, or by budding or grafting. It will also propagate freely by cuttings of the roots. It is a tree of rapid growth, frequently attaining a diameter of from four to five inches in twenty years. It arrives at its full growth in fifty or sixty years; but it requires to be eighty or one hundred years old before its wood arrives at perfection. It produces fertile seeds at the age of twenty years, but flowers several years sooner. The longevity of the tree is from one hundred and forty to two hundred years, though it has been known of a much greater age. There are many fine Sycamores in different parts of the kingdom; the largest of which, one at Bishopton in Renfrewshire, is sixty feet in height and twenty feet in girth. This tree is known to have been planted before the Reformation, and is therefore more than three hundred years old, yet it has the appearance of being perfectly sound.

THE COMMON WALNUT TREE.

[_Juglans[V] regia._ Nat. Ord.--_Juglandaceæ_; Linn.--_Monoec. Polya._]

[V] _Generic characters. Flowers_ monoecious. _Stamens_ 18 to 24. _Drupe_ with a 2-valved deciduous sarcocarp, or rind; and a deeply-wrinkled putamen or shell.

The Walnut tree is a native of Persia, and is found growing wild in the North of China. It was known to the Greeks and Romans, and was probably introduced into this country by the latter. It is now to be met with in every part of Europe, as far north as Warsaw; but it is nowhere so far naturalized as to produce itself spontaneously from seed. It ripens its fruit, in fine seasons, in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, as a standard; and it lives against a wall as far north as Dunrobin Castle, in Sutherlandshire.

The Walnut forms a large and lofty tree, with strong spreading branches, attaining even in this country to the height of ninety feet. The leaves have three or four pairs of oval leaflets, terminated by an odd one, which is longer than the rest. The barren catkins are pendulous, and are produced near the points of the shoots. The bark is thick and deeply furrowed on the trunk; but on the upper branches it is gray and smooth. The fruit is green and oval; and, in the wild species, contains a small hard nut. In the most esteemed cultivated varieties, the fruit is of a roundish oval, and is strongly odoriferous; nearly two inches long, and one and a half broad. The nut occupies two-thirds of the volume of the fruit. Towards autumn the husk softens, and, decaying from about the nut, allows it to fall out.

The nuts are used in different ways, and at various stages of their growth; when young and green, and before the shells become indurated, they make an excellent and well-known pickle, as well as a savoury kind of ketchup, and a liqueur is also made from them in this state. Previous to their becoming fully ripe, and while the kernel is yet soft, they are eaten in France with a seasoning of salt, pepper, vinegar, and shallots. When fully ripe, they are both wholesome and easy of digestion, so long as they remain fresh, and part freely from the pellicle, or skin, which envelopes the kernel. An oil is expressed from the nuts, which is of great service to the artist in whites, and other colours, and also for gold size and varnish.

When Walnuts are plentiful, it has been observed that there is also a plentiful harvest. Virgil mentions this observation in the first of his _Georgics_, which is thus translated by Martyn:--"Observe also when the Walnut tree shall put on its bloom plentifully in the woods, and bend down its strong, swelling branches: if it abounds in fruit, you will have a like quantity of corn, and a great threshing with much heat. But if it abounds with a luxuriant shade of leaves, in vain shall your floor thresh the corn, which abounds with nothing but chaff."

The Walnut is far from being an unpicturesque tree, and planted at some distance from each other they form shady and graceful avenues, and prosper well in hedge-rows. The Bergstras (which extends from Heidelberg to Darmstadt) is planted entirely with this tree; for by an ancient law, the Borderers were compelled to plant and train them up, chiefly on account of their ornament and shade, so that a man might ride for miles about that country, under a continued arbour or close walk--the traveller as well refreshed by its fruit as by its shade. Amid other trees whose foliage may be of a vivid green, its warm, russet-hued leaves present a pleasing variety about the end of May; and in summer that variety is still preserved by the contrast of its yellowish hues with the darker tints of other trees. It puts forth its leaves at such an advanced period of the year, and sheds them so early, that it is never long in harmony with the grove. It, therefore, stands best alone, as the premature loss of its foliage is then of less consequence.

The Walnut tree is found abundantly in Burgundy, where it stands in the midst of their corn fields, at distances of sixty and a hundred feet, and is said to be a preserver of the crops by keeping the ground warm. Whenever a tree is felled, which is only when old and decayed, a young one is planted near it; and in Evelyn's time, between Hanau and Frankfort, in Germany, no young farmer was permitted to marry a wife, until he had brought proof that he had planted a stated number of these trees. M. Sorbiere mentions the Dutch plantations of Walnut trees in terms of praise, remarking, that even in the very roads and common highways, they are better preserved and maintained than those about the houses and gardens belonging to the nobility and gentry of most other countries.

The Walnut was formerly in great request as a timber-tree; its place is generally now supplied by foreign woods, which excel that of our own growth. It was much used by cabinet-makers for bedsteads, and bureaus, for which purposes it is one of the most durable woods of English growth. It is also used for gun-stocks. Near the root of the tree the wood is finely veined--suitable for inlaying and other ornamental works.

The sweet-leafed Walnut's undulated grain, Polished with care, adds to the workman's art Its varying beauties.

Dodsley.

The Walnut is propagated by the nut; which is best sown where it is finally to remain, on account of the tap-root, which will thus have its full influence on the vigour of the tree. The plant is somewhat tender when young, and apt to be injured by spring frosts: it, however, grows vigorously, and attains in the climate of London the height of twenty feet in ten years, beginning about that time to bear fruit.

The Walnut sometimes attains a prodigious size and a great age. Scamozzi, a celebrated Italian architect, who died in 1616, mentions his having seen at St. Nicholas, in Lorraine, a single plank of the wood of this tree twenty-five feet wide, upon which the Emperor Frederick III. had given a sumptuous feast.

There is a remarkable specimen of this tree at Kinross House, in Kinross-shire, which measured nine feet six inches in girth, in September, 1796, and is supposed to have been planted about 1684. Sir T. Dick Lauder says it is probably the oldest Walnut tree in Scotland, and is evidently decaying, though whether from accident or age is uncertain.

Collinson tells us of another, in his _History of Somersetshire_, which he says grew in the Abbey Church-yard, on the north side of St. Joseph's Chapel. This was a miraculous Walnut tree, which never budded forth before the feast of St. Barnabas (that is, the 11th June), and on that very day shot forth leaves and flourished like its usual species. It is strange to say how much this tree was sought after by the credulous, and though not an uncommon Walnut, Queen Anne, King James, and many of the nobility, even when the times of monkish superstition had ceased, gave large sums of money for small cuttings from the original.

THE WEYMOUTH PINE.

[_Pinus_[W] _strobus_. Nat. Ord.--_Coniferæ_; Linn.--_Monoec. Monan._]

[W] For the generic characters, see p. 207.

This Pine is a native of North America, growing in fertile soils, on the sides of hills, from Canada to Virginia. It was introduced about 1705, and was soon after planted in great quantities at Longleat, in Wiltshire, the seat of Lord Weymouth, where the trees prospered amazingly, and whence the species received the name of the Weymouth Pine.

In America, in the state of Vermont, and near the commencement of the river St. Lawrence, this tree is found one hundred and eighty feet in height, with a straight trunk, from about four to seven feet in diameter. The trunk is generally free from branches for two-thirds or three-fourths of its height; the branches are short, and in whorls, or disposed in tiers one above another, nearly to the top, which consists of three or four upright branches, forming a small conical head. The bark, on young trees, is smooth, and even polished; but as the tree advances in age, it splits, and becomes rugged and gray, but does not fall off in scales like that of other Pines. The leaves are from three to four inches long, straight, upright, slender, soft, triquetrous, of a fine light bluish green, marked with silvery longitudinal channels; scabrous and inconspicuously serrated on the margin; spreading in summer, but in winter contracted, and lying close to the branches. The barren catkins are short, elliptic, racemose, pale purple, mixed with yellow, and turning red before they fall. The fertile catkins are ovate-cylindrical; erect, on short peduncles when young, but when full-grown pendulous, and from four to six inches long, slightly curved, and composed of thin smooth scales, rounded at the base, and partly covered with white resin, particularly on the tips of the scales; apex of the scales thick, and seeds oval, of a dull gray. The cones open to shed the seeds in October of the second year.

Gilpin is very severe upon this tree, and says that it has very little picturesque beauty to recommend it. On the contrary, this tree seems to be a great addition to a landscape: the meagreness of foliage, which Gilpin considers one of its principal defects, giving to it, in our opinion, an elegant appearance. He says that it is admired for its polished bark; but he adds, the painter's eye pays little attention to so trivial a circumstance, even when the tree is considered as a single object. Its stem rises with perpendicular exactness; it rarely varies, and its branches issue with equal formality from its sides. Opposed to the wildness of other trees, the regularity of the Weymouth Pine has sometimes its beauty. A few of its branches hanging from a mass of heavier foliage, may appear light and feathery, while its spiry head may often form an agreeable apex to a clump.

The Weymouth Pine is propagated from seed, which come up the first year, and may be treated like those of the Scotch fir. The rate of growth, except in good soil and in very favourable situations, is slower than that of most European Pines. Nevertheless, in the climate of London, it will attain the height of twelve feet in ten years from the seed. The wood is white or very palish yellow, of a fine grain, soft, light, free from knots, and easily wrought; it is also durable, and not very liable to split when exposed to the sun: but it has little strength, gives a feeble hold to nails, and sometimes swells from the humidity of the atmosphere; while, from the very great diminution of the trunk from the base to the summit, it is difficult to procure planks of any great length and uniform diameter. The largest Weymouth Pine in this country is at Kingston, in Somersetshire. In 1837 this tree was ninety-five feet in height, with a trunk of three feet in diameter.

THE WHITEBEAM TREE.

[_Pyrus aria_.[X] Nat. Ord.--_Rosaceæ_; Linn.--_Icosand. Pentag._]

[X] _Generic characters._ _Calyx_ superior, monosepalous, 5-cleft. _Petals_ 5. _Styles_ 2 to 5. Fruit a _pome_, 5-celled, each cell 2-seeded, cartilaginous.

The Whitebeam tree is a native of most parts of Europe, from Norway to the Mediterranean Sea; and also of Siberia and Western Asia. It is to be met with in every part of Britain, varying greatly in magnitude, according to soil and situation. It seems to prefer chalky soils, or limestone rocks; and also, according to Withering, loves dry hills and open exposures, and nourishes either on gravel or clay. The Whitebeam rises to the height of forty or fifty feet, with a straight, erect, smooth trunk, and numerous branches, which for the most part tend upwards, and form a round or oval head. The young shoots have a brown bark, covered with a mealy down. The leaves are between two and three inches long, and one and a half broad in the middle, oval, light green above, and very white and downy beneath. The flowers, which appear in May, are terminal, in large corymbs, two inches or more in diameter, and they are succeeded by scarlet fruit.

Mr. Loudon says that, "as an ornamental tree, the Whitebeam has some valuable properties. It is of a moderate size, and of a definite shape; and thus, bearing a character of art, it is adapted for particular situations, near works of art, where the violent contrast exhibited by trees of picturesque forms would be inharmonious. In summer, when clothed with leaves, it forms a compact green mass, till it is ruffled by the wind, when it suddenly assumes a mealy whiteness. In the winter season, the tree is attractive from its smooth branches and its large green buds; which, from their size and colour, seem already prepared for spring, and remind us of the approach of that delightful season. When the tree is covered with its fruit, it is exceedingly ornamental."

The Whitebeam may be raised from seed, which should be sown as soon as the fruit is ripe; otherwise, if kept till spring, and then sown, they will not come up till the spring following. The varieties may be propagated by cuttings, or by layering; but they root, by both modes, with great difficulty. Layers require to be made of the young wood, and to remain attached to the stool for two years. The rate of growth, when the tree is young, and in a good soil, is from eighteen to twenty-four inches a year: after it has attained the height of fifteen or twenty feet it grows much slower; but it is a tree of great duration. The roots descend very deep, and spread very wide; and the head of the tree is less affected by prevailing winds than almost any other. In the most exposed situations, on the Highland mountains, this tree is seldom seen above ten or fifteen feet high; but it is always stiff and erect. It bears lopping, and permits the grass to grow under it.

The wood is hard and tough, and of a very close grain, and will take a very high polish. It is much used for knife handles, wooden spoons, axle-trees, walking-sticks, and tool-handles. Its principal use, however, is for cogs for wheels in machinery.