Part 9

The Black-fruited Mulberry will grow in almost any soil or situation that is moderately dry, and in any climate not much colder than that of London. North of York it requires a wall, except in very favourable situations. It is very easily propagated by truncheons, or pieces of branches, eight or nine feet in length, planted half their depth in tolerably good soil, when they will bear fruit the following year. It is now rarely propagated by seeds, which seldom ripen in this country. No tree, perhaps, receives more benefit from the spade and the dunghill than the Mulberry; it ought, therefore, to be frequently dug about the roots, and occasionally assisted with manure. The fruit is very much improved by the tree being trained as an espalier, within the reflection of a south wall. As a standard tree, whether for ornament or the production of well-sized fruit, the Mulberry requires very little pruning, or attention of any kind.

The Black-fruited Mulberry has been known from the earliest records of antiquity; it is mentioned four times in the Bible, 2 Sam. v. 23, 24; 1 Chron. xiv. 14, 15. It was dedicated by the Greeks to Minerva, probably because it was considered as the wisest of trees; and Jupiter the Protector was called Mored. Ovid has celebrated the Black Mulberry in the story of Pyramus and Thisbe; in which he relates that its fruit was snow-white until the commingled blood of the unfortunate lovers, who killed themselves under its shade, was absorbed by its roots, when

Dark in the rising tide the berries grew, And white no longer, took a sable hue; But brighter crimson springing from the root, Shot through the black, and purpled all the fruit.

Cowley, in the fifth book of his poem on plants, has given a very plain and accurate description of the apparently cautious habits of this tree. He also thus alludes to the above fable:

But cautiously the Mulberry did move, And first the temper of the skies would prove; What sign the sun was in, and if she might Give credit yet to winter's seeming flight: She dares not venture on his first retreat, Nor trust her fruit or leaves to doubtful heat; Her ready sap within her bark confines, Till she of settled warmth has certain signs! Then, making rich amends for the delay, With sudden haste she dons her green array; In two short months her purple fruit appears, And of two lovers slain the tincture wears. Her fruit is rich, but she doth leaves produce Of far surpassing worth, and noble use. * * * * * * * * They supply

The ornaments of royal luxury: The beautiful they make more beauteous seem, The charming sex owe half their charms to them; To them effeminate men their vestments owe; How vain the pride which insect worms bestow!

Besides the Black-fruited Mulberry, there are four other species sufficiently hardy to bear our climate without protection; but it will be here sufficient to give a short account of the White-fruited (_M. alba_) as the next best known, and as the species whose leaves are used in feeding silk-worms. _M. alba_, is only found truly wild in the Chinese province of Seres, or Serica. It was brought to Constantinople about the beginning of the sixth century, and was introduced into England in 1596, where it is still not very common. In the south of Europe it is grown in plantations by itself, like willows and fruit trees; also in hedge-rows, and as hedges, as far north as Frankfort-on-the-Oder. When allowed to arrive at maturity, this tree is not less beautiful than the fairest elm, often reaching thirty or forty feet in height. When cultivated to furnish food for the silk-worms, the trees are never allowed to grow higher than three or four feet being cut down to the ground every year in the same manner as a raspberry plantation. In France and Italy the leaves are gathered only once a-year; and when the trees are then wholly stripped, no injury arises from the operation; but if any leaves are left on the trees, they generally receive a severe shock.

The specific characters of the White-fruited Mulberry are--_Leaves_ with a deep scallop at the base, and either cordate or ovate, undivided or lobed, serrated with unequal teeth, glossy or smoothish, the projecting portions on the two sides of the basal sinus unequal. The _fruit_ is seldom good for human food, but is excellent for poultry. It is a tree of rapid growth, attaining the height of twenty feet in five or six years, and plants cut down producing shoots four or five feet long in one season.

THE BRITISH OAK.

[_Quercus_.[O] Nat. Ord.--_Amentiferæ_; Linn.--_Monoec. Polya._]

[O] _Generic characters. Barren_ flowers arranged in a loose, pendulous catkin, the perianth single, the stamens 5-10. _Fertile_ flower in a cupulate, scaly involucrum, with 3 stigmas. _Fruit_ an acorn, 1-celled, 1-seeded, seated in the cupulate, scaly involucrum.

The Oak, when living, monarch of the wood; The English Oak, when dead, commands the flood.

Churchill.

On our entrance into the Woodland, the eye first greets the majestic Oak, which is represented as holding the same rank among the plants of the temperate regions throughout the world, that the lion does among quadrupeds, and the eagle among birds; that is to say, it is the emblem of grandeur, strength, and duration; of force that resists, as the lion is of force that acts. In short, its bulk, its longevity, and the extraordinary strength and durability of its timber, constitute it the King of Forest trees. These and other characteristics of the Oak are graphically expressed by the Roman poet:--

Jove's own tree, That holds the woods in awful sovereignty, Requires a depth of loading in the ground, And next the lower skies a bed profound; High as his topmast boughs to heaven ascend, So low his roots to hell's dominions tend. Therefore, nor winds, nor winter's rage o'erthrows His bulky body, but unmoved he grows. For length of ages lasts his happy reign, And lives of mortal men contend in vain. Full in the midst of his own strength he stands, Stretching his brawny arms and leafy hands; His shade protects the plains, his head the hills commands.

_Virgil's Georgics_, II.

"The Oak grows naturally in the middle and south of Europe; in the north of Africa; and, in Asia, in Natolia, the Himalayas, Cochin-China, and Japan, In America it abounds throughout the greater part of the northern continent, more especially in the United States. In Europe, the Oak has been, and is, more particularly abundant in Britain, France, Spain, and Italy. In Britain two species only are indigenous; in France there are four or five sorts; and in Spain, Italy, and Greece, six or seven sorts. The number of sorts described by botanists as species, and as natives of Europe, exceed 30; and as natives of North America, 40. The latter are all comprised between 20° and 48° N. lat. In Europe, Asia, and Africa, Oaks are found from 60° to 18° N. lat., and even in the Torrid Zone, in situations rendered temperate by their elevation."

In Britain, the Oak is everywhere indigenous, the two species being generally found growing together in a wild state. It, however, requires a soil more or less alluvial or loamy to attain its full size, and to bring its timber to perfection; these being seldom attained in the Highlands of Scotland, where it is still abundant in an indigenous state. The two species, _Q. robur_, or _pedunculata_, and _Q. sessiliflora_, are readily distinguished from each other by the first having the leaves on short stalks, and the acorns on long stalks, the other by the leaves being long-stalked, and the acorns short-stalked. In full-grown trees of the two species there is little or no difference either in magnitude and general appearance, or in quality of timber. _Q. robur_ being the most abundant, is called the Common Oak. Its twigs are smooth and grayish-brown: leaves deciduous, sessile, of a thin texture, obovate-oblong, serrated, with the lobes entire, and nearly blunt, diminishing towards the base; a little blistered, and scarcely glossy, with some down occasionally on the under side: acorns oblong, obtuse, much longer than the hemispherical scaly cup, placed on long peduncles. The distinguishing characters or the less common species, _Q. sessiliflora_, the sessile-fruited oak, are, leaves on longish foot-stalks, deciduous, smooth, and oblong, the sinuses opposite, and rather acute, the fruit sessile, oblong. In other respects it so closely resembles the other species, that of the numerous trees recorded for their enormous dimensions, age, and other peculiarities, the species is seldom particularized. Loudon believed that no important or constant difference exists between the mode of growth of the two kinds, individuals of both being found equally pyramidal, fastigiate, or orbicular. He considered, however, that _Q. sessiliflora_ could "readily be distinguished even at a distance, by the less tufted appearance, and generally palish green of its foliage in summer, and in winter by its less tortuous spray and branches, by its light coloured bark, by its large buds, and by its frequently retaining its leaves after they had withered, till the following spring."

The Oak, says Mr. Gilpin, is confessedly the most picturesque tree in itself, and the most accommodating in composition. It refuses no subject, either in natural or artificial landscape; it is suited to the grandest, and may with propriety be introduced into the most pastoral. It adds new dignity to the ruined tower and Gothic arch; it throws its arms with propriety over the mantling pool, and may be happily introduced into the humblest scene.

Imperial Oak, a cottage in thy shade Finds safety, or a monarch in thy arms: Respectful generations see thee spread, Careless of centuries, even in decay Majestic: thy far-shadowing boughs contend With time: the obsequious winds shall visit thee, To scatter round the children of thy age, And eternize thy latest benefits.

W. Tighe.

The longevity of the Oak is supposed to extend beyond that of any other tree. It is through age that the Oak acquires its greatest beauty, which often continues increasing, even into decay, if any proportion exists between the stem and the branches. When the branches rot away, and the trunk is left alone, the tree is in its decrepitude, the last stage of life, and all the beauty is gone.

Spenser has given us a good picture of an Oak just verging towards its last stage of decay:

--A huge Oak, dry and dead, Still clad with reliques of its trophies old, Lifting to heaven its aged, hoary head, Whose foot on earth hath got but feeble hold, And, half disbowelled, stands above the ground With wreathed roots, and naked arms, And trunk all rotten and unsound.

He also compares a gray-headed old man to an aged Oak-tree, covered with frost:

There they do find that goodly aged sire, With snowy locks adown his shoulders shed; As hoary frost with spangles doth attire The mossy branches of an Oak half dead.

Montgomery, too, does not forget to observe the longevity of the sturdy Oak:

As some triumphal Oak, whose boughs have spread Their changing foliage through a thousand years, Bows to the rushing wind its glorious head.

As we before noted, the beauty of almost every species of tree increases after its prime; but unless it hath the good fortune to stand in some place of difficult access, or under the protection of some patron whose mansion it adorns, we rarely see it in that grandeur and dignity which it would acquire by age. Some of the noblest Oaks in England were, at least formerly, found in Sussex. They required sometimes a score of oxen to draw them, and were carried on a sort of wain, which in that deep country is expressly called a _tugg_. It was not uncommon for it to spend two or three years in performing its journey to the Royal dock-yard at Chatham. One tugg carried the load only a little way, and left it for another tugg to take up. If the rains set in, it stirred no more that year; and frequently no part of the next summer was dry enough for the tugg to proceed: so that the timber was generally pretty well seasoned before it arrived at its destination.

In this fallen state alone, it is true, the tree becomes the basis of England's glory, though we regret its fall. Therefore, we must not repine, but address the children of the wood as the gallant Oak, on his removal from the forest, is said to have addressed the scion by his side:

Where thy great grandsire spread his awful shade, A holy Druid mystic circles made; Myself a sapling when thy grandsire bore Intrepid Edward to the Gallic shore. Me, now my country calls: adieu, my son! And, as the circling years in order run, May'st thou renew the forest's boast and pride, Victorious in some future contest ride.

We are sure that all who can appreciate beautiful poetry will be gratified by the following pathetic lamentation of the elegant Vanier:--

--No greater beauty can adorn The hamlet, than a grove of ancient Oak. Ah! how unlike their sires of elder times The sons of Gallia now! They, in each tree Dreading some unknown power, dared not to lift An axe. Though scant of soil, they rather sought For distant herbage, than molest their groves. Now all is spoil and violence. Where now Exists an Oak, whose venerable stem Has seen three centuries? unless some steep, To human footstep inaccessible, Defend a favour'd plant. Now, if some sire Leave to his heir a forest scene, that heir, With graceless hands, hews down each awful trunk, Worthy of Druid reverence. There he rears A paltry copse, destined, each twentieth year, To blaze inglorious on the hearth. Hence woods, Which shelter'd once the stag and grisly boar, Scarce to the timorous hare sure refuge lend. Farewell each rural virtue, with the love Of rural scenes! Sage Contemplation wings Her flight; no more from burning suns she seeks A cool retreat. No more the poet sings, Amid re-echoing groves, his moral lay.

As it is thus a general complaint that noble trees are rarely to be found, we must seek them where we can, and consider them, when found, as matters of curiosity, and pay them a due respect. And yet, we should suppose, they are not so frequently found here in a state of nature as in more uncultivated countries. In the forests of America, and other scenes, they have filled the plains from the beginning of time; and where they grow so close, and cover the ground with so impervious a shade that even a weed can scarce rise beneath them, the single tree is lost. Unless it stand on the outskirt of the wood, it is circumscribed, and has not room to expand its vast limbs as nature directs. When we wish, therefore, to find the most sublime sylvan character, the Oak, the elm, or the ash, in perfection, we must not look for it in close, thick woods, but standing single, independent of all connections, as we sometimes find it in our own forests, though oftener in better protected places, shooting its head wildly into the clouds, spreading its arms towards every wind of heaven:

--The Oak Thrives by the rude concussion of the storm. He seems indignant, and to feel The impression of the blast with proud disdain; But, deeply earth'd, the unconscious monarch owes His firm stability to what he scorns: More fix'd below, the more disturb'd above.

Again, we are told that the foliage of the Oak is

Tenacious of the stem, and firm against the wind.

The shade of the Oak-tree has been a favourite theme with British poets. Thomson, speaking of Hagley Park, the seat of his friend Littleton, calls it the British Tempe, and describes him as courting the muse beneath the shade of solemn Oaks:

--There, along the dale With woods o'erhung, and shagged with mossy rocks, Whence on each hand the gushing waters play, And down the rough cascade white dashing fall, Or gleam in lengthened vista through the trees, You silent steal; or sit beneath the shade Of solemn Oaks, that tuft the swelling mounts, Thrown graceful round by Nature's careless hand, And pensive listens to the various voice Of rural peace: the herds, the flocks, the birds, The hollow whispering breeze, the plaint of rills, That, purling down amid the twisted roots Which creep around, their dewy murmurs shake On the soothed ear.

Wordsworth also mentions the fine broad shade of the spreading Oak:

Beneath that large old Oak, which near their door Stood, and, from its enormous breadth of shade, Chosen for the shearer's covert from the sun, Thence, in our rustic dialect, was called The clipping tree: a name which yet it bears.

The Oaks of Chaucer are particularly celebrated, as the trees under which

--The laughing sage Caroll'd his moral song.

They grew in the park at Donnington Castle, near Newbury, where Chaucer spent his latter life in studious retirement. The largest of these trees was the King's Oak, and carried an erect stem of fifty feet before it broke into branches, and was cut into a beam five feet square. The next in size was called the Queen's Oak, and survived the calamities of the civil wars in King Charles's time, though Donnington Castle and the country around it were so often the scenes of action and desolation. Its branches were very curious: they pushed out from the stem in several uncommon directions, imitating the horns of a ram, rather than the branches of an Oak. When it was felled, it yielded a beam forty feet long, without knot or blemish, perfectly straight, four feet square at the butt end, and near a yard at the top. The third of these Oaks was called Chaucer's, of which we have no particulars; in general only we are told, that it was a noble tree, though inferior to either of the others. Not one of them, we should suppose, from this account, to be a tree of picturesque beauty. A straight stem, of forty or fifty feet, let its head be what it will, can hardly produce a picturesque form.

Close by the gate of the water-walk at Magdalen College, Oxford, grew an Oak, which, perhaps, stood there a sapling when Alfred the Great founded the University. This period only includes a space of nine hundred years, which is no great age for an Oak. It is a difficult matter indeed, to ascertain the age of a tree. The age of a castle, or abbey, is an object of history: even a common house is recorded by the family that built it. All these objects arrive at maturity in their youth, if we may so speak; but the tree, gradually completing its growth, is not worth recording in the early part of its existence. It is then only a common tree; and afterwards, when it becomes remarkable for its age, all memory of its youth is lost. This tree, however, can almost produce historical evidence for the age assigned to it. About five hundred years after the time of Alfred, William of Wainfleet, Dr. Stukely tells us, expressly ordered his college to be founded near the Great Oak; and an Oak could not, we think, be less than five hundred years of age to merit that title, together with the honour of fixing the site of a college. When the magnificence of Cardinal Wolsey erected that handsome tower which is so ornamental to the whole building, this tree might probably be in the meridian of its glory, or rather, perhaps, it had attained a green old age. But it must have been manifestly in its decline at that memorable period when the tyranny of James gave the Fellows of Magdalen so noble an opportunity of withstanding bigotry and superstition. It was afterwards much injured in Charles II.'s time, when the present walks were laid out. The roots were disturbed, and from that period it rapidly declined, and became reduced by degrees to little more than a mere trunk. The faithful records of history have handed down its ancient dimensions. Through a space of sixteen yards on every side from its trunk, it once flung its boughs; and then its magnificent pavilion could have sheltered with ease three thousand men; though, in its decayed state, it could for many years do little more than shelter some luckless individual, whom the drenching shower had overtaken in his evening walk. In the summer of the year 1788, this magnificent ruin fell to the ground, alarming the College with its rushing sound. It then appeared how precariously it had stood for many years. Its grand tap-root was decayed, and it had hold of the earth only by two or three roots, of which none was more than a couple of inches in diameter. From a part of its ruin a chair has been made for the President of the College, which will long continue its memory.

Near Worksop grew an Oak, which, in respect both to its own dignity and the dignity of its situation, deserves honourable mention. In point of grandeur, few trees equalled it. It overspread a space of ninety feet from the extremities of its opposite boughs. These dimensions will produce an area capable, on mathematical calculation, of covering a squadron of two hundred and thirty-five horse. The dignity of its station was equal to the dignity of the tree itself. It stood on a point where Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, and Derbyshire unite, and spread its shade over a portion of each. From the honourable station of thus fixing the boundaries of three large counties, it was equally respected through the domains of them all, and was known far and wide by the honourable distinction of the Shire-Oak, by which appellation it was marked among cities, towns, and rivers, in all the larger maps of England.

Gilpin gives us a singular account of an Oak-tree that formerly stood in the New Forest, Hampshire, against which, according to tradition, the arrow of Sir Walter Tyrrell glanced which killed William Rufus. According to Leland, and Camden from him, this tree stood at a place called Througham, where a chapel was erected to the king's memory. But there is now not any place of that name in the New Forest, nor the remains or remembrance of any chapel. It is, however, conjectured that Througham might be what is at present called Fritham, where the tradition of the country seems to have fixed the spot with more credibility than the tree. It is probable that the chapel was only some little temporary oratory, which, having never been endowed, might very soon fall into decay: but the tree, we may suppose, would be noticed at the time by everybody who lived near it, and by strangers who came to see it; and it is as likely that it never could be forgotten afterwards. Those who regard a tree as an insufficient record of an event so many centuries back, may be reminded that seven hundred years (and it is little more than that since the death of Rufus) is no extraordinary period in the existence of an Oak. About one hundred years ago, however, this tree had become so decayed and mutilated, that it is probable the spot would have been completely forgotten if some other memorial had not been raised. Before the stump, therefore, was eradicated, Lord Delaware, who occupied one of the neighbouring lodges, caused a triangular stone to be erected, on the three sides of which the following inscriptions are engraved:--

I.

Here stood the Oak-tree, on which an arrow, shot by Sir Walter Tyrrel at a stag, glanced, and struck King William II., surnamed Rufus, in the breast, of which stroke he instantly died, on the 2d of August, 1100.

II.