OUR NATIVE TREES. 41 



and adornment as are found in all the different countries of 

 Europe taken together. We have been accustomed to regard 

 ancestral England as richer in native tree growth than New Eng- 

 land. This impression we gather largely from British and Scottish 

 authors, especiallj' the poets. Much has been written b}' them 

 about the forest parks of Britain, and numbers of her grand old 

 oaks and sycamores have a written history running back over the 

 centuries, even to the days of which only tradition speaks. From 

 the time of the Druids, whose worship recalls to us the words 

 of Bryant, " The groves were God's first temples," and down to 

 the present da}', the British people have loved the woods. With 

 the inheritance of their literature, and to a large extent their traits 

 of character, we have naturall}' something of their veneration for 

 the forests — something of their regard for individual trees. The 

 destructive improvidence which naturally accompanied the neces- 

 sary felling of the woods, by the early settlers of New England, to 

 meet the demand for tillage and grazing lands, is now being fol- 

 lowed, tardily indeed, but we hope effectually, by intelligent efforts 

 to repair the losses thus caused. The indifference to the beaut}', 

 the usefulness, the educating influence of single trees, groups, or 

 hedge-rows, which was engendered in our New England ancestors 

 by their view that all trees were but a hindrance to the purposes 

 of agriculture, is gradually giving place to a recognition of their 

 {Esthetic as well as economic value. So we are now ready to in- 

 quire what our native arboreal growth affords ; and what species 

 are best adapted for special purposes and different localities. 



According to George B. Emerson, in his Report on the Trees 

 and Shrubs of Massachusetts, there are at least forty-five species 

 of deciduous trees, indigenous to the state, which generally reach 

 a height of from thirty to a hundred feet. There are also ten 

 conifers, growing to an equal size. All of the latter are ever- 

 greens, except the larch. 



Of the deciduous trees, four species are maple, three ash, four 

 birch, four hickory, two cherry, two elm, four poplar, nine oak, 

 and there is one of each of the following: — birch, chestnut, 

 Tjutternut, black walnut, linden or basswood, tulip, hornbeam, 

 hop-hornbeam or lever-wood, buttonwood, sassafras, nettle-tree, 

 and hackberry. Besides these trees there are of shrubs, or small 

 trees, one maple, one birch, two cherry, and two oak. 



The conifers are composed as follows: one hemlock, two other 

 spruces, two balsam fir, three pine, one juniper, and one larch. 



