ARBOR DAY MANUAL. -, 2 I 



TREES. 



TREES are indeed the glory, the beauty, and the delight of nature. * * * 

 In what one imaginable attribute, that it ought to possess, is a tree, pray, 

 deficient? Light, shade, shelter, coolness, freshness, music, all the colors of 

 the rainbow, dew and dreams dropping through their umbrageous twilight at 

 eve or morn, dropping direct, soft, sweet, soothing, and restorative, from 

 heaven. * * * 



We love you all ! And love you all we shall, while our dim eyes can catch 

 the glimmer, our dull ears the murmur, of the leaves, or our imagination hear, 

 at midnight, the far-off swing of old branches groaning in the tempest. * * * 



Not that we hold it to be a matter of pure indifference how people plant 

 trees. We have an eye for the picturesque, the sublime, and the beautiful, and 

 cannot open it without seeing at once the very spirit of the scene. O, ye who 

 have had the happiness to be born among the murmurs of hereditary trees ! 

 Can ye be blind to the system pursued by that planter Nature ? Nature 

 plants often on a great scale, darkening, far as the telescope can command the 

 umbrage, sides of mountains that are heard roaring still with hundreds of 

 hidden cataracts. And Nature often plants on a small scale, dropping down 

 the stately birk so beautiful, among the sprinkled hazels, by the side of the 

 little waterfall of the wimpling burnie, that stands disheveling there her 

 tresses to the dew-wind, like a queen's daughter, who hath just issued from a 

 pool of pearls and shines aloft and aloof from her attendant maidens. 



But man is so proud of his own works that he ceases to regard those of 

 Nature. Why keep poring on that book of plates, purchased at less than half 

 price at a sale, when Nature flutters before your eyes her own folio, which all 

 who run may read ; although to study it as it ought to be studied, you must 

 certainly sit down on mossy stump, ledge of an old bridge, stone-wall, stream- 

 bank, or broomy brae, and gaze, and gaze, and gaze, till woods and sky become 

 like your very self, and your very self like them, at once incorporated together 

 and spiritualized. After a few years' such lessons you may become a planter ; 

 and under your hands not only shall the desert blossom like the rose, but 

 murmur like the palm, and if "southward through Eden goes a river large," 

 and your name be Adam, what a sceptic not to believe yourself the first of 

 men, your wife the fairest of her daughters Eve, and your policy Paradise ! 



PROFESSOR WILSON. 



Let dead names be eternized by dead stone, 



Whose substance time cannot increase nor mar ; 



Let living names by living shafts be known, 

 That feel the influence of sun and star. 



Plant thou a tree, whose griefless leaves shall sing 

 Thy deed and thee. each fresh unfolding spring. 



EDITH M. THOMAS. 



