CHAP. I. AS COMPONENT PARTS OF GENERAL SCENERY. 201 



lives. The trees which would most please man in a savage state would be 

 those which had afforded him food or shelter : in a highly refined state, they 

 would be those which afforded him the greatest amount of intellectual enjoy- 

 ment, including their beauty as organic forms, their beauty as constituting a 

 particular species of a class of organised beings, and their beauty as giving rise 

 to pleasing or interesting associations. Perhaps the most interesting associ- 

 ation connected with trees is that of their being employed in ship-building; 

 because, without ships, mankind must have remained in isolated portions, and 

 could never have been highly civilised. It is probable, therefore, that, in 

 every country where ships are built, and where the trees employed are high in 

 the scale of organic beauty, the most intellectual people of that country will 

 consider such trees as the most beautiful. In Europe and America, the oak 

 is the tree chiefly used in ship-building ; and it is, at the same time, unques- 

 tionably fuller of variety and beauty of organic form, and of colour, and light 

 and shade, than any other tree of temperate climates ; the oak, therefore, to 

 the most refined of the inhabitants of these countries, may be considered as 

 the most beautiful of trees. 



There are, also, associations of a local nature connected with various spe- 

 cies of trees, which, when known, add to the pleasure of the beholder of the 

 particular species : for example, the antiquity of the celebrated chestnut at 

 Tortworth, or of that on Mount Etna , or the celebrity of the platanus at 

 Buyukdere' on the banks of the Bosphorus ; or of the elm under which the 

 founder of the state of Pennsylvania signed the first treaty with the Indians; 

 or of the sycamore of Trons, under which the deputies of the Swiss met in 

 1424, to swear to free themselves from the yoke of their lords ; lends an interest 

 to every individual of these species. Mount Lebanon is known to every one as 

 the native place of the cedar ; and Wilton is known to many as one of the few 

 places in England where that tree was first raised from seeds brought from 

 that celebrated mountain by Dr. Pococke. An individual, a general observer, 

 but not a botanist, who had never read the history of the cedar, would feel no 

 more interest in a young plant of that species, even if springing from one of 

 these trees, than in a spruce fir. A knowledge of the moral and historical 

 associations connected with trees adds, generally, to the interest of those 

 which are still young. In general, it is thought that such trees can have but 

 a very limited share of beauty ; and that they are chiefly worthy of admira- 

 tion when they acquire such a size as to invite the painter to delineate them. 

 This opinion can only have arisen from the general ignorance, and conse- 

 quent want of interest, which prevail respecting trees as organised beings ; 

 from ignorance of their properties in an economical and in a gardening point 

 of view; and from ignorance of the various associations which are connected 

 with them. The source of interest in objects generally, consists in their posi- 

 tive beauty and utility ; and in their susceptibility of variation, or of changes, in 

 their expression of this beauty and utility. Now, if we compare young trees 

 with old ones in these respects, we think it will not be denied that young 

 trees are objects of much greater interest than old ones. In a picturesque 

 point of view, we allow that the old tree has an advantage ; it has also the 

 advantage in point of shelter and shade; and, if it were to be cut down, it 

 would produce more timber. But will an old tree prove a source of as much 

 interest to the possessor of it, by its variations, in consequence of its yearly 

 increase in size, as a young tree, provided that possessor has a historical and 

 gardening knowledge of trees ? We think not ; and we would only ask any 

 one who is of a different opinion, whether, if he were to be allowed to have 

 only one tree in his garden, he would prefer a tree of ten years' growth, or a 

 tree that was already full grown ? With the latter tree the mind is carried 

 back to times which, though interesting in some respects, it is desirable 

 should never recur ; with the former, it is carried forward along with all the 

 improvements which are now contemplated, or in progress, in civilised society 

 throughout the world. For our own part, independently of all moral, histo- 

 rical, and economical considerations, so great is the botanical and horticul- 



