252 



TREES AND PLEASURE GROUNDS. 



give an account of a visit I made to the farm 

 of Mr. Pierce, in Chester county, Penn- 

 sylvania. Joshua Pierce was in the field 

 when we arrived. He is an active man of 

 about eighty, and still cultivates the ground ; 

 he accompanied us through his park, which 

 he laid out and planted with the assistance 

 of his brother. For an hour we wandered 

 amid magnificent pines and firs, whose noble 

 stems shot up to nearly a hundred feet, — the 

 ground dry and smooth beneath the impervi- 

 ous branches, through whose dark-green cano- 

 py was shed a " dim, religious light," as in 

 the virgin forests of our northern states, where 

 I have stood and heard with awe the wind 

 sounding through the tops of the pines, like 

 the tide of the restless ocean. Here nature's 

 diapason swelled the same universal note, 

 while by my side stood the man who had 

 planted and watched the growth of every 

 twig. 



Standing in this sylvan spot, with a long, 

 double colonnade of trees from ten to fifteen 

 feet in circumference on either side, it was 

 strange to hear Mr. Pierce say that he had 

 cradled wheat on this field, but that as it was 

 poor soil he planted it with peach trees, when, 

 after being troubled for twelve years by boy's 

 stealing the fruit, he thought he would plant 

 something that they could not steal, and be- 

 gan to foi'm this arboretum in 1798 ; so that 

 at the end of half a century it is probably the 

 finest artificial park in the country. The soil 

 was favorable to the growth of the trees, as 

 Mr. Pierce informed us that he had often 

 compared his trees with some of the same 

 species in the squares of Philadelphia, and 

 found they had made a more rapid growth 

 upward, by from one to two feet annually. 

 At one time he stocked the place with deer; 

 but the boys hunted them so that he was 

 obliged to give them up. 



Massachusetts abounds in fine isolated trees, 

 which still bear the name of those who planted 



them ; as the Hetichman ehn, on Boston Com- 

 mon, the Frye elm, at Andover, and the As- 

 pinwall elm, at Brookline. Yet, when com- 

 pared with the alleys of splendid trees raised 

 by Mr. Pierce, they are looked at as a soli- 

 tary Claude or RArHAEL would be by a 

 connoisseur who has seen the riches of the 

 galleries of the Eternal City. Here each tree 

 is in itself perfect, and variety enhances the 

 beauty of each. " The dark Norway pine," 

 with its branches sweeping to the ground, 

 brings up visions of the cold snows of the 

 north, of exile, suS"ering and death. The Cy- 

 press and Yew, though consecrated by the 

 ancients to the dead, look light and airy be- 

 side it. It is indeed a mournful tree. Some 

 weeping Niobe must have been its mortal 

 form, for whom the white pines and drooping 

 larches breathe an eternal requiem. Awe- 

 struck beneath these funereal trees we stood ; 

 but as we wandered on, the glowing sunlight 

 reflected from the broad leaves of the lofty 

 Magnolia and Chestnut, brought witli it feel- 

 ings of joy and gladness. As far as we could 

 see between the gray boles, wherever the sun- 

 shine penetrated, were young plantations 

 springing up. 



The most beautiful objects in the grounds, 

 were two fir trees, which rose about thirty 

 feet without branching, and above were of a 

 perfect conical shape. Around the trunks of 

 these, ivy had been trained, forming an in- 

 verted cone of brilliant green, in the numerous 

 flowers of which a swarm of bees were revel- 

 ling. 



All this sylvan scenery, which I have de- 

 scribed, was the work of two brothers — farm- 

 ers, who tilled the soil for their support, and 

 who have for many years enjoyed the fruits 

 of their labors ; and yet they did not begin 

 until nearly thirty years of age. Who would 

 not be proud to leave behind him such me- 

 morials, to keep his memory fresh 1 And yet 

 how many gentlemen, as well as farmei"S, have 



