136 



A PLEA FOR AMERICAN TREES. 



And, lastly, see that they are duly taken care, 

 of lohen planted ; for after cultivation im- 

 proves their character as well as it does the 

 crops in the fields, which no one would ex- 

 pect to see flourish without continued anxious 

 care. Having succeeded once, success be- 

 comes more certain in the future. It is the 

 progenitor of its own kind. It creates obser- 

 vation, and profits by experience ; and when 

 its effects are seen in cultivating hardy plants, 

 aided by these, it will enable the cultivator to 

 venture on new and untried experiments with 

 those of more feeble habits and sensitive cha- 

 racters, until accessions are made, astonish- 

 ing even to the operator's own senses. 



Have we made it a laborious and pains- 

 taking operation ? "We admit and claim that 

 it is right that it should be. Man was never 

 made to be a slothful, inactive, unthinking 

 lump of humanity ; but by a wise provision 

 of his maker, labor of body and mind are es- 

 sential to the health of each ; and it is by a 

 union of the efforts of the two, that he is to 

 work out his own temporal happiness. The 

 flower that one's own hand has cultivated. 



possesses, as well it may, peculiar beauties 

 and rare fragrance. When industry and skill 

 have carried that flower to the highest per- 

 fection, his soul feels enlarged, and an enjoy- 

 ment — such as never cheered up the soul of 

 the sluggard or the heedless one — rouses him 

 to new impulses and greater triumphs. Have 

 you seen the sickly, feeble, straggling plant, 

 with a few leaves, and those falling prema- 

 turely to decay, put on the foliage of health 

 and beaut}', and change its rough and imcer- 

 tain form for one of symmetry and elegance ? 

 And know ye not that labor and skill alone 

 have done it, and that all the regrets and idle 

 wishes that the heart could pour out, never 

 could have effected it ? And is there no re- 

 ward in this labor also ? Yes ; and it is the 

 rich reward of making nature subservient to 

 your wishes — of triumphing over her defor- 

 mities — of introducing beauty — which W\ill 

 please "the eye, which is never tired with 

 seeing," and gladden the heart of inau, in 

 their place. 



William Bacon 



Hichmond, August 5, 1850. 



A PLEA FOR AMERICAN TREES. 



FROM MISS COOPER'S " RURAL HOURS.' 



It is to be feared that few among the younger 

 generation now springing up will ever attain 

 to the dignity of the old forest trees. Very 

 large portions of these woods are already of 

 a second growth, and trees of the greatest 

 size are every year becoming more rare. It 

 quite often happens that you come upon old 

 stumps of much larger dimensions than any 

 living trees about them; some of these are 

 four, and a few five feet or more in diameter. 

 Occasionally, we still find a pine erect of this 

 size ; one was felled the other day, which mea- 

 sured five feet in diameter. There is an elm 

 about a mile from the village seventeen feet in 

 girth, and not long since we heard of a bass- 

 wood or linden twenty-eight feet in circumfer- 

 ence. But among the trees now standing, even 



those which are sixty or eighty feet in height, 

 many are not more than four, or five, or six 

 feet in girth. The pines, especially, reach 

 a surprising elevation for their bulk. 



As regards the ages of the larger trees, one 

 frequently finds stumps about two hundred 

 years old ; those of three hundred are not 

 rare, and occasionally we have seen one which 

 we believed to claim upwards of four hundred 

 rings. But as a rule, the largest trees are 

 singled out very early in the history of a set- 

 tlement, and many of these older stumps of 

 the largest size have now become so worn and 

 ragged, that it is seldom one can count the 

 circles accurately. They are often much 

 injured by fire immediately after the tree has 

 been felled, and in many other instances decay 



