566 



TREES AND SHRUBS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



beauties. It will give the farmers new 

 ideas of the value of timher lands, and ju- 

 dicious hints for the maintenance and im- 

 provement of his woodland. It will give 

 the artisan many useful hints, touching the 

 relative value and uses of various kinds of 

 timher ; and it will show many an indivi- 

 dual, who has never looked at the suhject in 

 a comprehensive light, the great value and 

 importance, as well as the beauty of the 

 woodland features of our country ; — so that 

 instead of sympathising with the destruc- 

 tiveness of the backwoodsman, he will feel 

 as if he had suddenly been created a royal 

 '• commissioner of the woods and forests." 



What we consider most entitled to praise 

 in this volume, is its clearness and its per- 

 spicuity, joined to the sagacity and obser- 

 vation it displays. There is nothing super- 

 ficial, and there is no parade of science. It 

 is a work that every intelligent farmer, ed- 

 ucated at a New England school, may read 

 and understand fully — and which is at the 

 same time as truly (not pedantically) learn- 

 ed, as if it had been prepared for the Acad- 

 emy of Sciences. Its author is a man who 

 has made himself familiar with what has 

 been written by other authors, aiid he has 

 studied nature and her facts, and digested 

 the latter for himself. The result is, we 

 think, a work of rare merit, and the only 

 regret we have, on rising from its perusal, 

 is, that it does not embrace the trees of the 

 Union, or at least the northern states, in- 

 stead of those only of Massachusetts. But 

 now that this volume has been so well done, 

 now that a part of the field has been so ad- 

 mirably surveyed, we do not despair of see- 

 ing the rest equally well covered. 



Mr. Emersojj's style is a happy one for 

 the class of readers, with whom we antici- 

 pate the largest and best influence for good 

 — the agricultural class. It is simple, and 



forcible, and his reasoning in behalf of the 

 more attractive side of arboriculture, is a 

 happy combination of the utility and poetry 

 of the subject, which will be much more 

 likely to make an impression, than argu- 

 ments drawn solely from the imagination. 

 Thus, in urging the more frequent employ- 

 ment of shade trees — 



" In a country so much exposed as ours 

 is, in consequence of the remarkable clear- 

 ness of the atmosphere, to the burning heat 

 of the sun, the use of trees for shade, is not 

 one of the least important. This use is 

 closely allied to the last. A tree which fur- 

 nishes a cool shade to the inhabitants of a 

 house, is at the same time, and on that ac- 

 count, its best ornament. At the season 

 when men travel for pleasure, a plain, low, 

 modest house, speaks more to the feelings, 

 and is more beautiful, than the showiest 

 house, unprotected from the sun. The tra- 

 veller in a hot day, welcomes every tree by 

 the road-side. Eyen a thin fringe of grey 

 birches, looks pleasant ; and he remembers 

 thankfully, the kindness or good taste which 

 has spared or planted a tree with a head 

 broad and thick enough for him to rest un- 

 der and cool himself. 



" Trees should be planted not only by 

 dwelling houses and along roads ; they 

 should be in every pasture, and by watering 

 places, and near every barn, — wherever cat- 

 tle, horses, or sheep are to be provided for. 

 All these animals suffer from our burning 

 sun; and to say nothing of their enjoyment, 

 the cost of shade trees will be many times 

 paid back in its saving of the milk, fat, 

 fleece, and strength, which will be the con- 

 quence of their being protected from the 

 heat of the sun." 



In reviewing, a short time ago, a new 

 work on the forest trees of this country, we 

 expressed our sincere regret and disappoint- 



