140 • BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



forty species of forest trees which attain a greater height 

 than thirty feet, while in France there are only eighteen of the 

 same description. Of the solid advantages which we derive 

 from this abundant variety I shall say nothing at present. It 

 needs only a cursory glance to perceive how much it enhances 

 the beauty of our natural scenery. " I was never tired," says 

 an intelligent English traveller, " of the forest scenery of 

 America, although I passed through it from day to day. The 

 endless diversity of foliage always prevents it from being 

 monotonous." 



The variety of shape and tints in their green foliage is not, 

 however, the chief distinction of our woods over those of the 

 old world ; they surpass them far more in the rich and 

 various hues of their autumnal leaves. This, if not the most 

 striking, is certainly the most unique feature of an American 

 landscape. What natural scenery can surpass in beauty that 

 presented by one of our forests in one of the brilliant and 

 serene afternoons of our Indian summer, when the trees are 

 clothed with a tapestry of the richest gold, and purple, and 

 scarlet, resembling, and almost rivalling, the most gorgeous 

 hues of our autumnal sunsets ? 



It is not the mere variety of coloring which is the peculiar 

 characteristic of our fading leaves ; this variety exists also 

 in European woods, though to a less extent; for, as has been 

 already stated, their catalogue of forest trees is far more 

 scanty than ours. But their leaves, in divesting themselves 

 of their summer green, lay aside also all their brilliancy, and 

 assume a complexion proverbially dull and faded. It is a pe- 

 culiarity, on the contrary, of many of our forest trees, that 

 their leaves, in changing their hue, lose little or nothing of their 

 brightness, and that their autumnal dress is not only far 

 richer, but scarcely less lively, than their freshest June liveries. 

 This circumstance is generally ascribed to some peculiarity In 

 our climate, and especially to the manner in which the cold 

 weather makes its first approaches. But this manner varies 

 almost every year, and yet our trees exhibit annually the same 

 splendid changes. For this, as well as For other reasons, we 

 are inclined to think that the peculiarity is not in the climate, 

 'nit in the trees themselves, and that it is one of those 



