332 DECIDUOUS TREES. 



Xor summer bud perfume the dew 

 Of rosy blusli. or yeiiow hue ; 

 Nor fruits of autumn, blossom bom, 

 My green and glossy leaves adorn ; 

 Nor murmuring tribes from me derive 

 The ambrosial amber of the hive ; 

 Yet leave ihis barren spot to me: 

 Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree I 



Thrice twenty summers I have seen 

 The sky grow bright, the forest green ; 

 And many a \vintr>' wind have stood 

 In bloomless, fruitless solitude. 

 Since childhood, in my pleasant bower, 

 First spent its sweet and sportive hour ; 

 Since youthful lovers m my shade 

 Their vows of truth and lapture made. 

 And on my trunks surviving frame 

 Carved many a long-forgotten name 

 Oh ! by the sighs of gentle sound, 

 First breathed upon this sacred ground. 

 By all that love has whispered there. 

 Or beauty heard with ravished ear ; 

 As love's own altar, honor me • 

 Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree 



THE AMERICAN CHESTNUT-TREE. Castanca america?ia. 



This, our common native chestnut, is one of the glories of 

 the rocky hill-sides and pastures of New England, and well known 

 throughout the northern States, and on the mountams of the 

 southern States. It is a tree of great size, grand character, and 

 rapid growth. In form, when mature, it resembles the white oak, 

 but assumes its grand air much younger. Fig. 105, is a por- 

 trait of a chestnut about ilfty years old, and exhibits the general 

 character of the tree at that age. Afterwards it increases more 

 rapidly in the size of its trunk and branches than in height or 

 lateral extension, and requires about a hundred years to attain 

 its noblest development ; while the white oak does not exhibit its 

 grandest character in less than twice that time. In its early 

 growth it is a little rounder, and more formal, than the white oak; 

 but develops so much more rapidly that^ at middle age (fifty), it 

 is more " oak-like "' than the oak itself, of the same age. The 

 chestnut is particularly attached to rocky situations, or loose gravelly 



