^372 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITDTE 



January 24, 1865. 

 Mr. Isaac M. Ward, Vice-President, in the ( hair. 



The Chairman introduced to the audience Mr. James Hogg, of Yorkville, 

 who delivered the second lecture of tlie series. 



The Trees of the Bible and the Classics. 



Ladies and Gentlemen : 



I confess to a feeling of embarrassment in appearing before you this eve- 

 ning, for I can not but feel that in addressing you immediately after the dis- 

 tinguished gentleman who opened this course of lectures, anything that I may 

 say will appear comparatively insignificant and uninteresting to you; yet 

 wishing to give my small mite to the furtherance of the objects v/hich our 

 Horticultural Association has in view, I do not shrink from the duty imposed 

 upon me, asking only your clemency for any short comings which may appear 

 in the discourse which I have the honor to- deliver before you. *■ 



I ha-^e chosen for my subject the " Trees ?ind Shrubs of the Bible and the 

 Classics," not intending to go into any scientific description of them, or to, 

 give any very learned dissertation in regard to them, but only to speak of 

 such as are most generally known to you, and are most familiar to your minds 

 as embalmed in holy and poetic associations. 



To me trees have a peculiar charm. I can not stand beneath a noble pine 

 and hear the sough and sighing of the winds through its leaves and branches 

 without a feeling of almost superstitious melancholy. If I stand before a • 

 noble oak, who for centuries has been contending with the warring elements, 

 whose branches bear witness, by their scars, to the many combats they have 

 had with the lightning and the tempest, and whose sturdy trunk, gray with 

 the moss of centuries, still stands firm and erect, still bidding defiance to the 

 elements, I can not resist a feeling of deep veneration and of momentary 

 insignificance. 



Our American people are greatly lacking in poetical feeling in this respect. 

 They have, as a general rule, no love for trees — nay, they rather hate them, 

 and ruthlessly destroy them. In all other lands trees have, during all ages, 

 been highly esteemed and frequently almost idolized, but here, where nature 

 has given us the most magnificent flora on the globe, we despise her glorious 

 gifts. It has frequently come under my observation that a person of opulence 

 will purchase a country seat, and will then most deliberately and barbarously, 

 cut down its principal glories, seeing nothing more to interest him in them 

 than the price they will bring in the ship yard. The same person will per- 

 haps plant some comparatively worthless exotics, highly prized because rare, 

 and only admiring them as a reflex of his, wealth. 



In the ligneous flora of our own country, we have a superabundant share 

 of the grand and the beautiful, yet we are wanting in trees whose names 

 are clothed in poetic imagery^ and association. It is true that our magnifi- 

 cent sylva is equally as beautiful if not more beautiful than that of Pales- 

 tine or of Greece ; our trees are equally with theirs "the tents which the 

 Lord has spread;" our forests are vast and age-lasting, but they are uncon- 

 secrated; from them, though so beautiful and grand, comes no whisperings 

 of an antiquity loved and dwelt upon; their glories have scarcely yet been 

 sung in verse to endure to the end of time. 



