M«y 16, 186«. ] 



JOUBNAL OF HORTICUIiTURE AND COTTAGE GAEDBNBB. 



367 



nms the lively, brilliant, and clear river Credit, rapidly, and at 

 times noisily, hastening its way to Port Credit, on Lal<e Ontario, 

 where its crystalline waters are lost in the waves of that noble. 

 Inland, fresh-water sea. Oh, beautiful river ! many a musing 

 bonr have I spent sitting on the semi-prostrate trunk of some 

 mighty monarch of the forest, which in his palmy days had 

 stood on your bank, and with his huge limbs softened the 

 blustering mnd lest it should too roughly ripple the smooth 

 surface of your glassy waters ; and now in bis hour of age, 

 when his roots can no longer give him support, and the rude 

 wind has conquered and ovei"thrown him, he leans lovingly o'er 

 your stream, and though decaying seems striving to protect 

 yon still. Here have 1 sat and watched the mingling tints of 

 the fohage of the Cedar and Hemlock, the Elm, the Ash, and 

 the Bass-tree, the tall straight Hickory, and the lofty Pine. 

 Twining amidst these, and adding greatly to the general wild- 

 nes3, luxuriance, and loveUness of the sylvan banks of the 

 river, the elegant Vine casts its graceful arms, embracing and 

 linking together the limbs of various trees, and converting the 

 whole into a closely woven arbour, affording cool and grateful 

 shade dm'ing the burning hoiu's of the noon of this climate. 

 But, alas ! the truth must be told : this shade harbours swarms 

 npon swarms of those fearful and ferocious creatures of prey 

 and torture vulgarly called mosquitoes, whose venomous stings 

 are more to be dreaded thau the surly bear or howling wolf. 



And now being on the bank of the river, let us proceed along 

 it, in spite of the mosquitoes, till we reach that low swampy 

 piece of groimd which we see in the next bend of the river 

 below us, where the foliage lijuks so dark and green, though 

 enlivened with the hghter hue of a Birch tree and the curious 

 soft-looking branches of the Hemlack. This is a Cedar swamp ; 

 and here, in the fall of the year, and when harvesting work 

 is ended, we shall find the settler, with what help he can 

 raise, hard at work chopping— «. c, felling Cedars for posts and 

 raUs. The White Cedar (Cupressus thyoides), grows, when not 

 too crowded, as a beautiful cone of darkish-green foliage, the 

 apex of which is of a, much lighter green in consequence of the 

 young shoots. It is an evergreen, and varies in height from 

 20 to 60, 70, and even in very favourable circumstances to 

 80 feet or more, though this last height is comparatively rare. 

 The lower boughs droop most elegantly towards the ground in 

 graceful sweeping curves, and the whole tree is an object of 

 great beauty, most pleasing to the eye, and on account of its de- 

 licious and delicate perfume equally so to the olfactory organs. 

 The tree grows sometimes with a straight grain — i.e., perpen- 

 dicularly, but more generally spirally. This can at once be de- 

 tected on looking at the bark, aud the straight-grained trees 

 are chosen as more readily split into rails and laid together 

 for that purpose, whilst tho.se of spiral growth are better for 

 posts, and, consequently, where required, reserved for that use. 

 One would imagine, to look at a standing tree, that it would be 

 almost impossible to spht auy trunk so full of branches ; but 

 such, with this tree, is not the case, for it splits, especially such 

 logs as are of straight grain, cleanly and readily, and any 

 one accustomed to the use of the axe and tolerably skilful, 

 can without the aid of wedges spht a log of from 6 to 12 inches 

 in diameter, and from 12 to 15 feet long, though, of course, 

 where the grain is spiral there is more difficulty, and wedges 

 would be reijuired for logs n<'t exceeding a loot in diameter. 

 The bai-k is rather rough externally, of a pale brown colour, 

 and burns (juickly, and with a very pleasant perfume. The 

 wood is light and soft, though very durable, long resisting the 

 attacks of tlie weather, being but very slightly affected by 

 changes of damp and dryness, aud is, therefore, invaluable as 

 fencing, esjiecially where the fences are made, as they mostly 

 are in Cauiida, by merely laying the rails one upon another in 

 a zigzag manner, so that they overlap each other, the lowest 

 jiail resting on the ground. :.••, :, , . 



«!?jThe next most valuaOIo wood fpr this purpose is very much 

 -•bqaTier, denvior, and chiscr-giained, aud grows on higher ground 

 ;than the Cedar -, it, is eaUed iilack Ash (Fraxinus sambucifolia). 

 The White .V^h (F. americana). I will only mention as being 

 very similar, iu fact, almoi^t entirely like our own English Ash, 

 and the tiiuln-r in valuable for similar purposes to those for 

 which we use it at borne— viz., cart and coach building, itc, 

 possessing ^nat strength and elasticity. The Black Ash is 

 different, its main value being f.ir fencing-purposes, since in 

 other respects it is inferior to the White, being a smaller tree 

 aud the tiuiljur of greaier spccitic giavity, and with less elas- 

 ticity aud toughness, -iThe foliage is of a dark green and has a 

 sombre ap|ii-aHui<-6. the, bank and wooa being also of a deeper 

 . and duller hue than thos^^yi^tliy.Whjbte Ash. 



What a lovely collection of plants is this at the foot of this 

 Black Ash, under the boughs of which I am now standing Off 

 the hill side, looking between the tmnks of the grand sylvaji 

 monarchs surrounding me, at the pure crystal streamlet run- 

 ning from a pretty little spring, which wells up close by ani' 

 hurries with noisy chattering impatience to join in the danc^ 

 and whirling race of the river which rolls at the base of the hillj 

 Growing on the bank just over the spring, in a soil composed' 

 of decayed leaves, bits of broken twigs, and dead moss, on the 

 top of a stiff clay, we see a beautiful dark green shining-leaved 

 httle plant, and stoop to pluck it, but the stem seems -tou^ 

 and not easily broken, and in pulling it away we bring with 

 the leaf a long bright yellow fibre, and on turning up the leafy' 

 mould with otir hands we are astonished to find a perfect nest 

 of these little yellow fibres. This plant is the Golden Thread. 

 (Coptis trifolia), and we find it taking a place in the pha-rmsi- 

 copajia of the United States as an astringent, though from ay 

 own experience one of very slight value, but still of great 

 repute amongst settlers and backwoodsmen. What is thia 

 running away in long creeping shoots, and sending np every 

 here and there, at irregular intervals, most elegant miniature 

 Fir trees with one long top shaped very similarly to a fox- 

 brush, the whole plant being of a beautiful bright green except 

 the top, which shades off gradually to a greenish yellow, anft 

 standing from G inches to a foot in height ? It is a Club MosSf 

 and is, like the Golden Thread, a plant said to possess medi»-' 

 cinal qualities, being used in ointments, itc. Now, let us mov^ 

 a little further up the stream, though before we go we will just 

 pluck this pretty, spreading, five-armed plant with its delicate 

 black stem and horizontal fronds ; it is one of Flora's fairest 

 productions, and is one of the Maiden-hair Ferns. 'v 



As we proceed np the river we come to what in this part 'iff 

 the worid is termed a " jam" — that is, the river is blocked nj( 

 and rendered impassable to any boat or other floating thing, and 

 it occurs in the following manner :— Some tree or log— thatls, 

 trunk of a tree cleaned up and ready for use, in floating dowa 

 the river grounds in a shallow place and sticks fast, generaHj 

 at one end, whilst the other end swings round and rests against 

 the bank, thus narrowing the river's channel ; again, another log 

 comes and may go through and pass on its journey downwards, 

 but most probably is caught by the log already fixed ; others, 

 again, come down the stream until another grounds or is 

 canted across the gap between the end of one fixed log and 

 another, or a fixed log and the opposite bank ; in this man- 

 ner the dam across the river is complete, and small bushes, 

 limbs of trees, logs, and trees themselves, are all stopped and 

 woven together iu an inextricable mass, which not even th« 

 floods of spring, caused by the breaking up of the ice and 

 melting of the snow, can always remove, since on one or two of 

 these jams I found most perfect httle gardens, and on one in 

 particular I saw growing, one species of Fern, five kinds of 

 Grasses, the Blue Flag or Iris, the wild Clematis or Old 

 Man's Beard, and the Hop. Under this garden the clear river 

 flowed at the rate of four miles an hour, its soft mnrmuru^ 

 ripple and the cool shade of the lofty trees growing on its 

 edges, combining with the m.irked silence of the woods at mid- 

 day to strike the mind and impress npon the senses that 

 luxurious and delicious feeling of sweet and calm repose, 

 expressed in the Italian words dolce fnrnunte. 



As, however, that decidedly enervating feeling is hardly com- 

 patible with forcing our way along the banks cf that part of the 

 river where I now wish to lend }-ou, let us throw it aside, 

 aud pushing over the jam follow me into this low piece of 

 ground lying between the margin of the river and a lofty bank 

 some 300 or 400 yards off, and comprising an area of about two 

 acres. Through this, and amidst a dense thicket, run various 

 little gulUes, each the bed of a clear streamlet, the whole neither 

 more nor less than a network of small branches running off in 

 various directions from the bed of the ri^■er, which is here in 

 no part deeper than 4 feet. Well, we will hop over these little 

 brooks and thrust our way through the bushes, for those who 

 love Black Currants will be amply rewarded with as many as 

 they choose to eat, and all for the trouble of picking, since the 

 greater portion of this plot of land is so closely overgrown with 

 this shrub as to render it a difficult matter to make a passage 

 through the bushes. The fruit, though of small size, is sweet 

 and of good flavour, but still being wild is quite neglected by 

 the inhabitants, for nobody seems to think it worth gathering 

 or preserving. This, however, is not the case with the liasp- 

 berry, which grows wild all along the diy banks of the river, in 

 dense thickets ; for its fruit is gathered and used in vaiioua 

 ways, making a deUcious preserve, though requiring more sugar 



