CHARACTERISTICS OF TREES. 389 



majesty, will be readily appreciated. There is neither symmetry 

 nor thrift in its rough trunk and huge gnarled branches ; but 

 there is a power and strength there, which represents the history of 

 centuries of growth and battle with the elements. It is a scarred 

 old veteran, a forest Jupiter, " a brave old oak." 



Bryant thus apostrophizes one of these old monarchs : 



"Ye ha'e no Iiistory. I cannot know 

 Who, when the hill-side trees were hewn away, 

 Haply two centuries since, bade spare this oak 

 Leaning to shade with his irregular arms, 

 Low-bent and long, the fount that from his roots 

 Slips through a bed of cresses toward the bay. 

 I know not who, but thank him that he left 

 The tree to flourish where the acorn fell, 

 And join these later days to that far time 

 While yet the Indian hunter drew the bow 

 In the dim woods, and the white woodman first 

 Opened these fields to sunshine, turned the soil 

 And strewed the wheat. An unremembered Past 

 Broods like a presence, 'mid the long gray boughs 

 Of this old tree, which has outlived so long 

 The flitting generations of mankind." • 



The imagination is stirred to an indescribable affection or 

 reverence for such ancient trunks that it is difficult to account 

 for ; — a something allied to the love or awe with which we regard 

 the Deity. 



Among the sources of picturesque effect in old trees are the 

 sharp lights and shades caused by the deep furrows and breaks in 

 their bark,* the abrupt angles of their great limbs, and the broad 

 openings through the masses of their foliage that allow the sun to 

 fleck with bright I'^lits parts of the tree which are surrounded with 

 deep shadows ; — causing what artists call bold effects. These are 

 always inferior in young trees, though there is a vast difference in 

 different species of trees of similar age and size in their tendency 

 to produce these effects. 



* At Montgomerj' Place, near Barrytown, on the Hudson, are some old locust trees with bark 

 so deeply furrowed as to make their trunks picturesque to an extraordinary degree, so that this 

 character is a sufficient offset to the meagreness of their stunted tops to save them from destruc- 

 tion. A city visitor there once asked the proprietor why she did not have the bark cue off—" it 

 looks so very rough ! " 



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