I96 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Ancients worshipped trees. Lakes and mountains however 

 glorious for a time, in time weary — sylvan scenery never 

 palls." So wrote Lord Beaconsfield in 1880, a few months 

 before his death. 



This love for trees may be engendered through associations 

 and memories of early childhood, through constant association 

 and living in a sort of communion with trees, as Keats has so 

 well expressed in the lines — 



" The trees 

 That whisper round a temple become soon 

 Dear as the temple's self," 



or brought about by the feeling of wonder and awe inspired by 

 beautiful tints, graceful outlines, or giant proportions. In this, 

 however, we have admiration rather than love displayed ; 

 admiration for something which is beautiful, artistic, splendid; 

 something which in its size and grandeur is capable of casting 

 a spell over the beholder. After all there is a wide gulf between 

 the man who loves trees either with the love of an artist for the 

 beautiful or the love engendered by memory and association, 

 and the man who is admiring something which he has never 

 seen before equalled in strength or beauty. To illustrate this 

 distinction between the lover of trees and the admirer of trees 

 we may take the recorded incident of Xerxes and the celebrated 

 Phrygian Plane. 



When Xerxes set out on his Grecian expedition, his route led 

 him near a noble specimen of an Oriental Plane which grew in 

 Phrygia. It is recorded that this plane was of immense size, 

 unfortunately the dimensions are not stated, and Xerxes was so 

 struck with it, having never before seen such a majestic tree, 

 that he ordered his army to halt for three days that he might 

 pitch his tent under its spreading branches. The part which 

 this sylvan giant played in the history of Greece is well known, 

 for during the time Xerxes was under its spell, the Greeks were 

 getting the defences of Thermopylae into order. There was no 

 love on the part of Xerxes for this plane, for he had never seen 

 it before, but he admired it simply because it was something 

 greater among trees than he had been acquainted with. 



4. Both this love and admiration for trees must be present, 

 we should think, in the breasts of all men. The Ancients, and 

 many primitive peoples too, must, although probably not 

 cognisant of the fact, have possessed feelings of love and 



