CHAP. I. Afi COMPONENT PARTS OF GENERAL SCENERY. 201' 



which he 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 hira the greatest amount of in- 

 tellectual enjoyment, 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 association connected with trees is that of their being em- 

 ployed in ship-building ; because, without ships, mankind must have remained 

 in isolated portions, and could never have been highly civilised. It is pro- 

 bable, therefore, that, in every country where ships are built, and where the 

 trees employed are high in the scale of organic beautj^, the most intellectual 

 people of that countrj^ 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, unquestionably 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 pai'ticular species: for example, the antiquity of the celebrated chestnut 

 at Tortworth, or of that on Mount Etna j 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, woiUd 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 Avorthy 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; 

 fi-om 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 positive beauty and utihty ; and in their susceptibility of variation, 

 or of changes, in their expression of this beauty and utiUt}^ 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 conse- 

 quence 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 d'ifferent 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 re- 

 spects, 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 ciAalised society throughout the world. For our own part, independently of 

 all moral, historical, and economical considerations, so great is the botanical 



