326 VAEIETT OF TEEES IN^ AMERICA. 



"While the American forest flora has made large contributions 

 to that of Em-ope, comparatively few Em-opean trees have been 

 naturalized in the United States, and as a general rule the indig- 



read by most students of English literature — it is not so generally familiar aa 

 to make the quotation altogether superfluous : 



VII. 



Enforst to seeke some covert nigh at hand, 



A Bhadie grove not farr away they soide, 



That promist ayde the tempest to withstand; 



Whose loftie trees, yclad vrith sommers pride, 



Did spred so broad, that heavens light did hide, 



Not perceable with power of any Starr: 



And all within were pathes and alleies wide, 



With footing worne, and leading inward farr ; 



Faire harbour that them seems ; so in they entered ar. 



VIII. 



And foorth they passe, with pleasure forward led. 

 Joying to heare the birdes sweete harmony, 

 Which therein shrouded from the tempest dred, 

 Seemd in their song to scorne the cruell sky. 

 Much can they praise the trees so straight and hy. 

 The sayling pine ; the cedar stout and tall: 

 The vine-propp elm ; the poplar never dry; 

 The builder oake, sole king of forrests all ; 

 The aspine good for staves ; the cypresse funeral! ; 



IX. 



The lanrell, meed of mightie conquerourB 



And poets sage ; the flrre that wcepeth still ; 



The willow, worne of forlorn paramours; 



The eagh, obedient to the benders will ; 



The birch for shaftes ; the sallow for the mill ; 



The mirrhe sweete-bleeding in the bitter wound ; 



The warlike beech ; the ash for nothing ill ; 



The fruitfull olive ; and the platane round ; 



The carver holme ; the maple seeldom inward sound. 



Although the number of species of American forest-trees is much larger 

 "than of European, yet the distinguishable varieties are relatively more numer- 

 ous in the Old World, even in the case of trees not generally receiving special 

 care. This multiplication of varieties is no doubt a result, though not a fore- 

 seen or intended one, of human action ; for the ordinary operations of Euro- 

 pean forest economy expose young trees to different conditions from those 

 presented by nature, and new conditions produce new forms. All European 

 woods, except in the remote North, even if not technically artificial forests, 

 acquire a more or less artificial character from the governing hand of man, 

 and the effect of this interference is seen in the constant deviation of trees 

 from the original type. The holly, for example, even when growing as abso- 

 lutely virild as any tree can ever grow in countries long occupied by man, pro- 

 duces nimierous varieties, and twenty or thirty such, not to mention interme- 

 diate shades, are described and named as recognizably different, in treatises 

 •on the forest-trees of Europe. 



