84 SYLVA FLORIFERA. 



Nature, which provides the Greenland bear 

 with its shaggy coat, and adapts the plumage 

 of the feathered race to the height they are 

 destined to soar in the air, has not with less 

 wisdom clothed the vegetable creation with 

 a foliage suitable to their natural destinations. 

 Thus the ash, which was allotted to cover the 

 barren soils of the most bleak and exposed 

 situations, securely locks up its winged foliage 

 and its loose flowers within its black buds, 

 until Boreas has exhausted his March winds, 

 and the early retiring of its sap in autumn, 

 leaves the branches disengaged of their pin- 

 nated foliage, before the arrival of the equi- 

 noctial gales, thus leaving the trunk and 

 branches too poor for the hurricane to vent 

 its vengeance on. It is therefore well calcu- 

 lated for plantations on those exposed situa- 

 tions on the sea coast, where but few other 

 trees will prosper ; and the planting of those 

 few in such situations is often too much 

 neglected, as the dreariness of the downs in 

 the vicinity of Brighton so conspicuously ex- 

 emplifies, where, if a few patches of ground 

 were ploughed up and sown with ash keys, 

 holly berries, and furze seed, as happy a com- 

 bination would spring up, as the greatest ad- 

 mirers of light and shade could wish. We 

 make this observation on a September day on 



