46 THE XUT CULTUKLST. 



But my limited space will not allow of tracing the 

 history of the beech from ancient to modern times, 

 although it has always been esteemed as food for man, 

 as well as for wild and domesticated animals. Swine fat- 

 tened on beech and oak mast have for ages been noted 

 for their excellent flesh, and the value of many an old 

 estate in Great Britain was determined more upon the 

 mast the forest produced, than the area or number of 

 square miles they contained. 



As a monumental tree the beech has no rival, for 

 its smooth gray bark, perennial and almost unchange- 

 able, has ever been a convenient place to register chal- 

 lenges to enemies, epitaphs, epithets, and probably more 

 frequently than all, the initials of the name of some 

 loved one, who might possibly pass that way and find 

 her name engraved on the beechen tree. I doubt much 

 if there is a beech grove in all Europe or in America, 

 within a convenient distance of a city, country village or 

 schoolhouse, on which the bark of the trees is not scar- 

 ified by the knives of boys in recording the initials of 

 their own names, and those of their favorites of the op- 

 posite sex. These living registers were long ago recog- 

 nized by the poets, and more than eighteen centuries 

 ago Virgil admits it in these lines : 



" Or shall I rather the sad verse repeat, 

 Which on the beech's bark I lately writ." 



In more modern timjs Tasso hints of the same habit, 

 in Jerusalem Delivered, to wit : 



" On the smooth beechen rind, the pensive dame 

 Carves in a thousand forms her Tancred's name." 



That the Spanish youths were not oblivious to their 

 opportunities for recording the names of their favorites 

 we must assume to be true, from the lines of Don Luis 

 de Gongora, who tells us that : 



" Not a beech but bears some cipher, 



Tender word, or amorous text. 

 If one vale sounds Angelina, 

 Angelina sounds the next." 



