TREES IN NATURE 57 



that digitalis is distilled from foxglove-leaves, 

 and salicin from willow-bark ? I, at least, 

 have been out in the fields with a doctor when 

 he has gathered plants to use as medicine. 

 This gets a little nearer to romance, perhaps, 

 than the chemist's shop. We should probably 

 have a sense of magic if we went out with an 

 old woman, living all alone in a cottage by a 

 wood, and watched her gathering herbs; then 

 saw her brew them in a kettle swung over a 

 fire ; and later, in fear and trembling, drank 

 some of the brew from a cracked willow- 

 pattern tea-cup, and found that it really did 

 lessen our rheumatic pains. But be the roots 

 and fruits cooked or uncooked, be the concoc- 

 tion of herbs drunk from a measured medicine- 

 glass or a cracked tea-cup, it is magic all along 

 the line. So is the life of the trees, so are their 

 varied forms and beauty. Let us, therefore, 

 go happily on our way, not fearing that we are 

 going to leave poetry for prose. 



The various trees that will mostly concern 

 us here, such as oak, ash, elm, yew and others, 

 take us back so far that not only the memory 

 but the history, legends and myths of man 

 run not to the contrary. Through what long 



