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ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 



A DISCOURSE ON TREES. 



TO the great tree-loving fraternity we belong. We love trees with uni. 

 versal and unfeigned love, and all things that do grow under them, or 

 around them "the whole leaf and root tribe." Not alone where they are in 

 their glory, but in whatever state they are in leaf, or ruined with frost, or 

 powdered with snow, or crystal-sheathed in ice, or in severe outline stripped 

 and bare against a November sky we love them. Our heart warms at the 

 sight of even a board or a log. A lumber yard is better than nothing. The 

 smell of wood, at least, is there, the savory fragrance of resin, as sweet as 

 myrrh and frankincense ever was to a Jew. If we can get nothing better, we 

 love to read over the names of trees in a catalogue. Many an hour have we 

 sat at night, when after exciting work, we needed to be quieted, and read nur- 

 serymen's catalogues, and London's Encyclopedias, and Arboretum, until the 

 smell of the woods exhaled from the page, and the sound of leaves was in our 

 ears, and sylvan glades opened to our eyes that would have made old Chaucer 

 laugh and indite a rapturous rush of lines. 



But how much more do we love trees in all their summer pomp and pleni- 

 tude. Not for their names and affinities, not for their secret physiology, and as 

 material for science, not for any reason that we can give, except that when 

 with them we are happy. The ye is full; the ear is full, the whole sense and 

 all the tastes solaced, and our whole nature rejoices with that various and full 

 happiness which one has when the soul is suspended in the midst of Beetho- 

 ven's symphonies and is lifted hither and thither, as if blown by sweet sounds 

 through the airy passage of a full heavenly dream. 



Our first excursion in Lenox was one of salutation to our notable trees. We 

 had a nervous anxiety to see that the axe had not hewn, nor the lightning 

 struck them ; that no worm had gnawed at the root, or cattle at the trunk ; 

 that their branches were not broken, nor their leaves failing from drought. We 

 found them all standing in their uprightness. They lifted up their heads 

 towards heaven, and sent down to us from all their boughs a leafy whisper of 

 recognition and affection. Blessed be the dew that cools their evening leaves, 

 and the rains that quench their daily thirst ! May the storm be as merciful to 

 them when in winter it roars through their branches, as is a harper to his harp ! 

 Let the snow lie lightly on their boughs, and long hence be the summer that 

 shall find no leaves to clothe these nobles of the pasture ! 



First in our regard, as it is in the whole nobility of trees, stands the white 

 elm, no less esteemed because it is an American tree, known abroad only by- 

 importation, and never seen in all its magnificence, except in our own valleys. 

 The old oaks of England are very excellent in their way, gnarled and rugged. 

 The elm has strength as significant as they, and a grace, a royalty, that leaves 

 the oak like a boor in comparison. Had the elm been an English tree, and 

 had Chaucer seen and loved and sung it; had Shakespeare and every English 

 poet hung some garlands upon it, it would have lifted up its head now, not only 

 the noblest of all growing things, but enshrined in a thousand rich associations 

 of history and literature. 



