June 29, 1892.] 



Garden and Forest. 



303 



withered Golden-rod stalks and the ghost of last year's Daisies 

 but thousands of six-incli Pines, rearing- their gallant little 

 heads, undaunted by the weather, and evidently come to stay. 

 We hailed them with shouts of delight — here a clump, there a 

 single one, crowding closely in the mossy springy places, more 

 scattered where the soil was thin ; but unmistakably there, 

 after all these years of waiting, evidently quite at home, having 

 hidden themselves in the long grass of the precedingsummer, 

 while they had been sending down roots so far that when we 

 try to separate some of the denser groups it is really hard to 

 dig them up with a trowel without injuring their fibres. 



My scientific companion magnanimously forbore to tri- 

 umph ; indeed, the proud result was as unexpected to him as 

 to me, and was so gratifying that he could allbrd to accept it 

 with quiet satisfaction. 



Some of these little trees, in a spot sheltered from the north- 

 east wind by a clump of tall Birches, have attained respectable 

 proportions, so that we ventured to move them into separate 

 holes. Though taken up on a cool evening with a ball of 

 earth, and apparently no disturbance of their roots, the per- 

 verse things wilt and hang down their heads as if tliey were 

 ready to misbehave, which they have no excuse for doing. On 

 one evening we moved twenty-five very little ones, which all 

 grew in one hole, and most of them bore it very amiably, 

 though some of them perished. As these would have died 

 any way, if left alone in the struggle for the survival of the 

 fittest in that little space, we bore their loss as well as we 

 could, though I must admit that your true planter cannot see 

 the death of one seedling with indifference, which gives a new 

 meaning to the text that " not a sparrow falleth to the ground 

 without His knowledge." If he who plants mourns the failure 

 of one tiny seed, it helps to the understanding of the Creator's 

 interest in all the creatures into which He has breathed the 

 breath of life, for, after all, those of us who struggle to bring 

 to birth or to keep in existence some germ of vegetation ap- 

 proach the great mysteries of being, and feel that we have a 

 hand in it. 



Our corner in Pines teaches us a brave lesson. Our joy in 

 our little wood-lot, with its fairy trees, is the greater for being 

 long delayed. What comes easily never has the zest of the 

 pleasure that is waited for. We value a result by the difficul- 

 ties of its achievement, the triumph of its success. An acre of 

 unsown Daisies is a trial, while a square foot of planted Pines 

 is a satisfaction, showing that a longed-for and slowly reached 

 result is in itself a reward. Our Pines represent the achieve- 

 ment of birth after long and almost hopeless waiting. Itisnot 

 so much the thought of the majestic forest that consoles as 

 the assured fact that the unstayable seed has started and that 

 it has a future before it. Under the old tree we sit and look 

 back ; it represents shelter and repose and peaceful satisfac- 

 tion. Beside the seedling in its various stages we stand and 

 watch ; in it is hope, a future, a long look forward. Age and 

 youth ; in each an interest and a joy. In one the delight of 

 fruition, in the other the splendid promise of birth and growth. 

 In the establishment of a tree for coming generations there is 

 an unselfish delight. It is not our own reward we seek, but 

 we lend ourselves to the great forward movement of life, and 

 in that creative instinct feel ourselves elevated and enlarged, 

 at one with mighty forces which we cannot understand, but of 

 which we can avail ourselves by directing their vivifying 

 course. 



It is this linking of the humblest with the greatest that lifts 

 existence above the commonplace ; that gives to the philoso- 

 pher, the poet and the artist an ever new meaning and joy in 

 the common things of the earth, which, to him who reads 

 aright, are fraught with significance. To the thinker, as to the 

 poet, the simplest things serve as types which represent the 

 infinite ; to them the humble is the high, the microscope as 

 inspiring as the telescope, since each reveals new worlds to 

 the imagmation. The seed contains the germ of the tree. One 

 Pine-cone in time will produce a forest, for the progression is 

 geometrical. One acre of ground faithfully studied gives one 

 the key to the problem of tlie universe ; helps to a recognition 

 of the miracle of creation, and, rightly valued, affords per- 

 petual food for the intelligence, while supplying the body with 

 lively exercise. 



From our coi"ner in Pines we win hope, amusement and pa- 

 fience. It opens for us a window into the future and an out- 

 look into the immensities ; it links us with a hereafter we 

 shall not live to see ; with a generation by whom our names 

 shall be forgotten, and proves to us the truth of that vision of 

 the poet, in which he sees that 



The whole round earth is every way 

 Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 



Hingham, Mass. M. C. MobbiltS. 



The Great Elm at Derby Line. 



THE Elm figured on page 307 is douljtless the largest tree 

 in Orleans County, Vermont, if not in all the north-eastern 

 part of the state. It is, unquestionably, a tree of the original 

 forest ; and it was, to the eye, nearly as large in all its dimen- 

 sions when the region was first settled, in the early part of the 

 present century, as now. Its height, by careful measurement, 

 is 103 feet. Three feet from the ground its circumference is 

 exactly twenty feet, while at five feet it is eighteen feet and 

 two inches. Its comparatively small head is probably due to 

 the fact that it grew in a close forest and had no opportunity to 

 spread. 



It stands close to the highway, which is also the main 

 street of the village of Derby Line — so named because this 

 street extends to the international boundary line between the 

 United States and Canada, and is continuous with the main 

 streets of Rock Island and Stanstead, Canada. Rock Island is 

 situated upon an island in the Tomefobi River, which is almost 

 exactly on the line at this point, and Stanstead Plain is a vil- 

 lage closely adjacent on the north bank. The whole territory 

 for fifty miles around consists of the finest agricultural land. 

 On the Canadian side it is known as the Eastern Townships, 

 in larg'e part settled by New Englanders, who, before the line 

 was strictly defined, " made their pitches" without much re- 

 gard to where their citizenship and allegiance might fall. In 

 addition to this Yankee element there was a large introduction 

 of English immigrants, mostly soldiers from the disbanded 

 armies of Great Britain after the final overthrow of Napoleon I. 

 There is only a moderate intermixture of the French Canadian 

 element in this part of Canada, and its principal town, Sher- 

 brooke, now a city of some 12,000 people, is substantially of 

 British antecedents and environment. 



All this region (as also the valley of the great St. John River, 

 in northern Maine and New Brunswick) consists of what is 

 known as "hard-wood land," although, of course, with much 

 mixture of Pine, Spruce, Fir, Hemlock and White Cedar 

 (Arbor-vitee). It is a rolling, well-watered section, the chief 

 rivers on the Canadian side — the St. Francis and Chandi&re, 

 with their tributaries — and many lakes, large and small, leav- 

 ing the traveler through it not often out of the sight of water. 

 Altogether it is a pleasant land, peopled by an excellent class 

 of farmers, with a considerable manufacturing element on 

 both sides of the line. The vigorous growth and great size of 

 the trees testify to the fertility of the soil, and for general farm- 

 ing, it and its continuation eastward constitute decidedly the 

 best portions of the great peninsula lying east of the Hudson 

 River and Lake Champlain. 



Newport. Vl. ^- H. HoskuiS. 



Plant Notes. 



Some Recent Portraits. 



IN the June issue of The Botanical Magazine are portraits 

 of Althaea ficifolia (t. 7237), a native of south-eastern 

 Europe and the Levant, a handsome Hollyhock, long 

 known in cultivation, differing principally from the well- 

 known Althsa rosea in the narrow lobingof the leaves, an 

 uncertain character hardly to be depended on to distin- 

 guish the species. As a weed of cultivation this plant 

 extends from Persia to Siberia, southern Russia, Servia, and 

 Egypt, and is believed to have originated in north-western 

 Persia. It varies from a few inches to five feet in height, 

 while the flowers vary in color from pale yellow to purple. 

 Eria marginata (t. 7238), a little-known Orchid originally 

 described from a solitary specimen believed to have been 

 introduced from Burmah. It belongs to the small section 

 Hymenolsena, with cylindric or clavate stems, a few sub- 

 terminal leaves, short peduncles, and large colored bracts. 

 Sir Joseph Hooker points out its relationship to the Kaha- 

 sian Eria clavicaulis, which has a small rounded mid-lobe 

 of the lip margined with purple, and to the Ceylon Eria 

 Lindleyii, of which the lateral lobes of the lip reach almost 

 the same length as the terminal. It is a small-flowered 

 plant of no great beauty, with white sepals and petals and 

 a lip bordered with red, the middle lobe being light orange 

 color. Senecio Galpini (t. 7239), a native of the Transvaal 

 Republic and a rather showy succulent plant with pale 

 leaves and dark orange flowers in dense heads. Porana 

 paniculata (t. 7240), a member of the Convolvulus family 

 and a native of the East Indies, with small light yellow 



