350 



THE NATURE BOOK 



" muffle round its knees in fern " far in 

 the depths of the forest. And the call of 

 these wilder trees always seems to be 

 " up and away," but the elm says " it 

 is good to be here." 



For the well-being of the trees, as well 

 as for the general safety, it is necessary 

 often to remove large limbs from the 

 older timber, and in this the elm suffers 

 less than oaks and other trees, which 

 extend their branches horizontal!}^ (for 

 naturally it is the horizontal branches 

 which are most commonly sacrificed). 

 If allowed an ample space, the elm can 

 make as great a spread as another ; but 

 its chief glory is in its height ; the elm 

 is essentially a soaring tree, and its noblest 

 branches strike always at the sky ; only 

 leave it its stature and the dignity of the 

 tree will be maintained. 



Others of the elder brethren have not 

 fared so well as the elms in the battle 

 against time and all the other ills that 

 trees are heir to. The sweet chestnuts 

 which Carohne, Queen of George II., 

 planted when she filched land from Hyde 

 Park to add to her gardens of Kensington 

 Palace, are scarcely more than the relics 

 of trees ; picturesque as noble ruins always 

 are, and still with much of strength in 

 their old trunks, and vivid life gleaming 

 in the clean serrated leaves: still "they 

 bring forth fruit in old age," though per- 

 haps one should not expect ripeness and 

 edibility from those prickly burrs. 



Hollow trunks, ridged and twisted bark, 

 with stumps for limbs and branches dead 

 and bare, how strong and how pleasant 

 the contrast between these and the 

 younger trees planted amongst them ; 

 slender soaring limes, feathery ashes, and 

 striphng silver birches. Crabbed age and 

 youth happily living together. 



The oaks probably never made a great 

 show here. They cannot learn, one thinks, 

 to love the London clay, and it is certain 

 they will not abide the London smoke. 

 Here and there may be found amongst 

 the younger oaks healthy and well 

 developed trees, and one may yet sit 

 beneath the crooked horizontal boughs 

 and see the sky above fretted by the 

 lovely pattern of the oak leaf. We of 

 to-day may do this, but, unless we 

 learn to purge our air from smoke and 

 a hundred noxious gases, our children's 



children will look in vain for a London 

 oak. 



The sward in the less frequented parts 

 of the Park is particularly pleasant with 

 a warm and comfortable kind of pleasant- 

 ness ; the great diversity of the grasses, 

 and the prevalence of agreeable " weeds," 

 give it the appearance and firmness of 

 old and mellowed pasture — which indeed 

 it is. It is not too much to suppose that 

 some of this may be actually virgin 

 turf, the very sward that was trodden 

 and cropped by the deer of the old forests 

 of Middlesex. 



Moreover, it is quite clear that the 

 Kensington Garden fairies, at one time 

 grown rare and even supposed by many 

 to have become extinct, but which in 

 these latter times have been fully re- 

 habihtated by Mr. Barrie and Mr. Arthur 

 Rackham, dance upon the grass a good 

 deal of moonlight nights, for here in 

 evidence are many of " those green-sour 

 ringlets, whereof the ewe bites not." 



A city park, however pleasant, is not 

 the country ; the best it can do is to 

 suggest the country, and it is the wonder 

 of Hyde Park that, shut in by the count- 

 less streets and buildings of London, it 

 does this so well. 



In the evening of a showery day in 

 autumn (showers clear the air — and the 

 ground — the populace not loving rain) 

 one may go into the Park and scent the 

 grateful moisture, and the odour of fallen 

 leaves, and see boughs and sky reflected 

 in little pools of clean rain water. The 

 contemplative visitor will naturally drift 

 to the quietest part of Kensington Gardens, 

 and look toward the west, where the sun 

 is going down amongst stormy broken 

 clouds ; he will admire once more the 

 alchemy which turns London smoke into 

 curtains of dusky gold — gold mingled 

 with fire. x\nd when the colour dies out 

 of the sky, and the shadows deepen under 

 the trees, there will steal into the mind 

 a sense of the shadows which the same 

 evening hour is si)reading in the hollows 

 of quiet hills all over England. And the 

 breeze which murmurs in the planes 

 overhead will sing, in ears unhearing for' 

 the time the sound of London's traffic, 

 the song of the forest and the mountain 

 pine. 



When one thinks how man}- lives of 



