DEVOTJED TO AGRIOULTURB AND ITS EINDRSD ARTS AND SCISINCSS. 



VOL. IX. 



BOSTON, DECEMBER, 1857. 



NO. 12. 



JOEL NOTJRSE, Propwetob. 

 Office.. .13 Commercial St. 



SIMON BROWXf, EDITOR. 



FRED'K HOLBROOK, ) 

 HEKRY r. FRENCH, 5 



Associate 

 Editors. 



DECEMBER. 



APPEAKANCES OF TREES IN WINTER. 



ECEMBER is thujS 



, graphically describ- 

 j ed by anonymous 

 I English authors : — 

 "Age does not 

 wither beauty more 

 effectually than win- 

 ter withers all the 

 pleasantness of our 

 old rural haunts. — 

 Paths, that in the 

 flush and lusty 

 pride of summer, 

 were bowery cloisters, 

 pillared and roofed with 

 rustling boughs, tocbI 

 with bird-notes, or the murmur- 

 ing hum of insect-life, and filled 

 with a green twilight that sunset 

 used to kindle into gold, are bleak and 

 bare, silent and desolate, open to the 

 sky above, and carpeted with sodden leaves be- 

 neath. Rippling runnels have lost their silvery 

 voices, and utter hoarse responses to the wailing 

 wind. Silver-sheening ponds, that were such 

 faithful mirrors of the changeful heavens, are 

 now mere miry reservoirs, turbid and dark, black 

 blots upon the blank and dreary landscape. Trees 

 that were lately garmented with lavish leafiness, 

 wear now the spectral aspect of grim and grisly 

 skeletons; and through their rude and leafless 

 branches, we obtain a glimpse of cottage roofs and 

 fair white walls, that have been hidden from our 

 eyes, since April's leaves were young and green." 



The preceding passage affords us a vivid picture 

 of a wintrj' landscape, before the snow has come up- 

 on the earth ; and the beauty of the description is 

 proof to our mind that the loveliness of nature, 

 though changed, is not destroyed. As the supposed 

 cheerless season of winter has now come upon us, 



let us consider whether all that can yield no pleas- 

 ure must be sought within doors, while it continues, 

 or whether nature is not still inviting us by new 

 aspects of beauty, to contemplate her ever chang- 

 ing scenes. In summer we see the leafy beauty of 

 trees, but cannot well discern the beautiful arrange- 

 ment of their spray and the different hues of their 

 branches. Gilpin, in his work on "Forest Trees," 

 has treated this subject very fully. He says "The 

 boughs of trees, likewise, and all their larger limbs, 

 add, in winter, a rich variety and contrast to the 

 forest ; the smooth and the rough, the light and the 

 dark, often beautifully opposing each other. In 

 winter, the stem predominates, as the leaf in sum- 

 mer. It is amusing in one season to see the branch- 

 es losing and discovering themselves among the 

 foliage : and it is amusing also, in the other, to 

 walk through the desolate forest, and see the vari- 

 ous combinations of stems, the traversing of branch- 

 es across each other in so many beautiful direc- 

 tions; and the pains which nature takes in forming 

 a wood as well as a single tree. She leaves no part 

 unclosed ; but pushing in frhe branch, or the sprig, 

 as the opening allows, she fiUa all vacant spaces ; 

 and brings the heads of the trees which grow near 

 each other into contact ; while every step we take 

 presents us with some beautiful variety, in her 

 mode of forming the fretted roof, under which we 

 walk." 



We call attention to these appearances, because 

 we are persuaded that the more beauty one is able 

 to behold and appreciate in nature, at all seasons, 

 and especially in winter, the more pleasure will at- 

 tend his rustic occupations ; and the aiore content- 

 edly will he perform those out-of door tasks, which 

 must often be performed alone, with nothing but 

 the wild objects of nature for his companions. — 

 Probably (here are not many of our New England 

 farmers, who are generally shrewd and intelligent 

 observers, who hare neglected to notice the differ- 

 ent appearance of trees in the winter season ; and 

 who does not know the elm, the ash, the oak, and 



