TOO TRANSACTIONS OF THE HORTICULTURAL 



or savage denizens. We find the oak, maple and elm living in peace- 

 ful brotherhood. At their base we find mosses and delicate flowers, 

 the most gorgeous of which is the well-known cardinal flower. This, 

 I think, does not grow further west than Illinois. Who of us have 

 not seen it, now peeping from the shaded ravine, now nodding from 

 the wayside brook, now gleaming from the meadow, its brilliant scar- 

 let in contrast with the deep green of the shady haunts it loves, it is 

 an object of superb beauty and interest. What gorgeous bouquets 

 of it we have gathered in the woods of our bottom lands ! Another 

 favorite wild-flower is the fringed gentian, which comes late. Some 

 poet ( Bryant, it must have been, for his whole soul was wrapt up in 

 the beauties of nature) wrote these lines to the gentian : 



" Thou waitest late, and com'st alone, 

 When woods are bare and birds are flown; 

 Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye 

 Look through its fringes to the sky." 



The cycle of the years opens and closes wilh a slow, harmonious 

 progress, which is quite a poem; and we do not escape from these 

 harmonies. Were our forests always the same, always green and 

 blossomy, we should beg them to have pity on us. If their rythm 

 continuously stretched out its long periods of youth and decay, we 

 should see in them much too plainly the image of our own destiny. 

 But this charming renewal every spring deceives us to ourselves. 

 We think ourselves every year as young as the oak which is in leaf, 

 and set out again with it. 



From frequent descriptions we are almost as familiar with the 

 tropical forest as with our own. In the splendid forests of Brazil the 

 tree seldom lives beyond forty or fifty years. Its children spring 

 from its roots and seeds, press closely around, choke and kill it. 

 There the orchids suspend their fantastic flowers, and the ferns softly 

 undulate their fronds. In our own forests the oak is the king; ever 

 from the very first its life may teach us lessons of gravity and con- 

 stancy. From its birth it sets before it this end. It knows that 

 everything depends upon the beginnings. How straight it plants 

 its root, like a stake in the heart of the earth. Slow is the 

 oak, just as it is strong. In our temperate climes the dream of the 

 tree is to become a strong oak or a spreading elm, and to endure. 



The reign of the forest will soon terminate. The arm of man 

 has been pitiless. In the place of the forest he has created the des- 

 ert. The tree having fallen, the spring has dried up, and with it 

 earth's fertility. The elms, maples, pines and venerable oaks shudder 

 with fear. Then let us, while the forest still remains, go to her and 

 enjoy her beauties and grandeurs with a keen pleasure. 



Thoreau, the eminent American naturalist, informs us that the 

 wild apple grows at first in the form of a little cluster of twigs, 

 which the ox browses upon and leaves almost level with the ground; 



