36 THE TREES OF AMERICA. 



" The green trees whispered low and mild ; 



It was a sound of joy ! 

 They were my playmates when a child, 

 And rocked me in their arms so wild ; 

 Still they looked at me and smiled 



As if I were a boy ; 

 And ever whispered mild and low, 



' Come, be a child once more ! ' 

 And waved their long arms to and fro, 

 And beckoned solemnly and slow. 

 O, I could not choose but go 



Into the woodlands hoar ; 

 Into the blithe and breathing air ; 



Into the solemn wood. 

 Solemn and silent every where ! 

 Nature with folded hands seemed there. 

 Kneeling at her evening prayer; 



Like one in prayer I stood." 



There is interesting subject for study in the arrangement of the branches of 

 trees. To carry out the design of nature, which every where strives to produce 

 the greatest variety of form in the arrangement of lines and angles, it is neces- 

 sary that the attachment of the branches of trees should be of such a character 

 as to insure them against being torn from the parent stem by the ordinary forces 

 to which they are exposed. Thus rectangular-branching and fruit-bearing trees 

 have their branches much more securely united to the trunk than those whose 

 angles are more acute, or that do not yield fruit. Again, the branches of ever- 

 greens, which are liable to be loaded with snow and ice during our winters, come 

 directly out of the body of the tree, so as to present longitudinal fibres only 

 to the action of the forces which tend to break them. The fibres, which, by their 

 complex arrangement, make what is called branch-wood, which is so much prized 

 in the manufacture of furniture, are mainly intended by nature to prevent the 

 branches from splitting from the trunk. 



It may not be inappropriate in this place to trace the progress of the devel- 

 opment of vegetable structure ; since all vegetable forms, from the Baobab of 

 Senegal, with its hoary age of sixty centuries, and the giant Eedwood of Cali- 

 fornia, scarcely less venerable, which has looked down from its " far height " upon 

 the storms of ages, to the fungus of a few hours, — all owe their origin to the 



