54 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
P«iialfwttl Jtpffmetti 
new-york horticultural society. 
The Society met at the rooms No. 600 
Broadway, on Monday evening, April 2d, 
President Wilson G. Hunt in the chair. Af¬ 
ter the reading of the minutes of the pre¬ 
vious meeting, the President informed the 
Society that, through the kindness of Francis 
D. Cutting, he had received some valuable 
seeds from the Patent office, at Washington, 
which will be distributed among the mem¬ 
bers. For this purpose the Society will 
meet at Clinton Hall, Astor-place, on Mon¬ 
day evening next, April 9. 
The committee on flowers reported, among 
others, some fine specimens of Cinnerarias, 
Camelias, and a very beautiful Acacia Culti- 
formis, exhibited by Thomas Hogg, Jr. ; a 
graceful Diacentria Spectabilisand a magnifi¬ 
cent White Rose, grown by Stephen Crans¬ 
ton, Hoboken ; a very pretty seedling Cin- 
neraria, uncut, exhibited by Mr. Sutton, &c. 
TREES. 
BY ALFRED B. STREET. 
(Concluded, from page 39.) 
And now the oak, “ the brave oM oak,” 
and so on. Suppose yourself in a wood! 
Do you see that little brown vegetable cup 
with a braided cover—there, by the dead 
maple leaf and a tuft of crimson-headed 
moss ? Yon robin just planted his foot upon 
and covered it. And then do you see that 
towering tree whose head seems nearly to 
touch the white cloud above it? Look ! upon 
its apex there is a bird seemingly the size of 
this wild pigeon on the beech tree, but in 
reality an eagle. True, many years have 
intervened between the two objects, but you 
think twice ere realizing that yon seamed, 
stern, sturdy oak once nestled in this acorn. 
And what a tree it is ! First piercing the 
mold, a tiny needle that the ground-squirrel 
would destroy with a nibble, and then rear¬ 
ing grandly toward the sun a wreath of 
green to endure for ages. Doth the wild 
winds dash against it? It shakes its proud 
head, but no more bends its whole shape 
than yon crag. Doth the arrowy sleet strike 
it ? Its leaves only make clicking music; and 
so for the early snow it bears it up as easily 
as a deer would fragments of kalmia blos¬ 
soms on his antlers. How finely its dark 
green stands out from the lighter hues of 
the beeches, birches and maples. And then, 
how it keeps old time at the distance ! The 
child gathers the violet at its foot; as a boy 
he pockets its dropped acorns ; a man, he 
looks at its height towering up, and makes 
it the emblem of his ambition. Years after, 
with white hairs and palsied limbs, he tot¬ 
ters at noontide to lie within its shade and 
slumber, “ perchance to dream ” of that last 
sleep which cannot be far distant and which 
“ knows no waking.” But has the oak 
changed ? Mocker of the storm, stern darer 
of the lightning, there he stands, the same, 
and seemingly forever. Challenger of Time, 
defyer of earth’s changes, there he stands 
the pride of the forest, satirizing, in his 
mute language, alike the variations and 
evanescence of man. 
And he does all things in a grand, slow 
way, unlike other trees. In spring time, 
when the aspen has showed for a month its 
young leaves, when the beech has thrust 
forth its beautiful feathers, when the maple 
has made a red rain of its glowing blossoms 
upon the forest floor, the oak still look® as 
he did when January was frowning upon his 
branches. When the aspen has elaborated 
its small leaves into thick foliage, when the 
beech has spangled itself over with emerald, 
when the maple has hung upon its slender 
stems its broad, pearl-lined verdure, no tint 
of green is yet upon the oak. He stands in 
dark disdain, as if mourning the perished 
winter. But at last, when the woodland is 
smiling in its fully developed glory, when 
blossoms of the locust and tulip tree are 
di-enching the air with delicious sweetness, 
then stirs the oak. Little brown things^re 
scattered over his great boughs, which in due 
time become long, deep-veined leaves ; and 
lo ! the regal oak has donned his splendid 
robe. The summer passes and the autumn 
comes. What stands in the corner of yon 
wood, swathed in a mantel of the true im¬ 
perial ! Crimsons and yellows and golden 
browns are flashing all around him, as 
though there were a carnival among the 
trees, but no hue is brighter than that of the 
brave old oak in his robe of royal purple. 
And he is in no more haste to let that robe 
of his go, than in donning it. When the 
shrieking blasts have torn its mantle from 
every other tree, the oak still clings to his 
as if he said to those shrieking blasts, “ I 
defy your fury!” when the snow-bird comes 
twittering among the woods to tell them the 
snow shall shortly be showering loose pearl 
all through their,gaunt domains, the oak yet 
clings to his mantle, blanched and tattered 
though it be. High amid the snow-drifts, 
firm amid the blasts, the pale crackling 
leaves still cling, with nothing in the wide, 
bleak woods to keep them company, save 
here and there a shivering lingerer upon the 
beech-tree. Often it is only when their suc¬ 
cessors come “ to push them from their 
stools ” that the old leaves quit the gallant 
oak and lie down to perish. So a health to 
the oak. 
We will merely touch, in passing, upon 
the horse-chestnut with its great glistening 
spring buds bursting into cones of pearly 
red-spotted blossoms that almost cover its 
noble dome of foliage ; upon the hemlock 
with its masses of evergreen needles, and 
the cedar with its misty blueberries ; upon 
those tree-like shrubs—the hopple with its 
gigantic leaves serving as sylvan goblets at 
picnics; the sumac with its clusters of 
splendid crimson; the sassafras diffusing 
from its thick leaf a most delicious breath ; 
the laurel arching above the brooks a roof ra¬ 
diant with immense bouquets of rose-touched 
snow, and even garlanding the apex of the 
water-beech with its superb chalices, while 
its younger sister, the ivy, crouches at the 
foot of the tamarack, and spruce, rich in red- 
streaked urns of blossoms; and the witch- 
hazel smiling at winter, with it curled sharp- 
cut flowers of golden velvet. 
We come now to the pine, of all my great¬ 
est favorite. Ho! ho ! the burly pine ! The 
oak may be king of the lowlands, but the 
pine is the king of the hills ; aye, and moun¬ 
tains, too. 
Ho ! ho ! the burly pine ! How he strikes 
his clubbed foot deep into the cleft of the 
rock, or grasps its span with conscious pow¬ 
er. There he lifts his haughty front like the 
warrior monarch that he is. No flinching 
about the pine, let the time be ever so stormy. 
His throne is the crag, and his crown is in 
the heavens, and, as for the clouds, he tears 
them asunder some time, and uses them for 
robes. Reader, did you ever hear him 
shout?—for there is a pine mountain on the 
upper Delaware that outroars, in the winter 
storm, all the thunder you ever heard! Stern, 
deep, awfully deep, that roar makes the 
heart quiver. It is an airquake of tremend¬ 
ous power. And his single voice is by no 
means silvery when he is “ in a breeze.” 
When the stern warrior king has aroused 
his energies to meet the onslaught of the 
storm, the battle-cry he sends down the 
wind is heard above all the voices of the 
green wood. His robe streams out like a 
banner, and so wild does he look, you 
would think he was about to dash himself 
from his throne of rock upon the valley 
beneath. But no; his great foot grasps 
more closely the crag, and when, after 
a while the tempest leaves him, how 
quietly he settles to his repose ! He adorns 
his crown with a rich wreath, caught from 
the sunset, and, an hour after, he wears the 
orbed moon as a splendid jewel upon his 
haughty brow. The scented breeze of the 
soft evening breathes upon him, and the grim 
warrior king wakes his murmuring lute, and 
oil, such sounds, so sweet, so soothing! 
Years that have passed live again in the 
music ; tones long since hushed, echo once 
more in the hearth ; faces that have turned 
to dust, but how loved in the old time !— 
glimmer among the dusky boughs; eyes 
that years ago closed on earth to open in 
heaven smile kindly upon us. We lie down 
in the dark shadow upon the mossy roots 
and are happy—happy in a sad, sweet, ten¬ 
der tranquility that purifies the soul, and 
while it makes us content with earth, fills us 
with love for heaven.— Knickerbocker Gallery. 
WHAT CAN BE DONE IN A GARDEN- 
Thirty years ago I purchased an establish¬ 
ment, consisting of a dwelling-house, barn, 
carriage and wood-house, calculating to make 
it a permanent residence. There was at¬ 
tached a little land for a garden, on which 
were just five apple trees, and in front of the 
house were three trees of the Balm of Gilead; 
the trees were all about six inches in diame¬ 
ter at that time ; but two of the apple trees 
were hollow, and I cut one of them down, 
after trying to make it do something and 
finding I could not. 
Well, all the apple trees bore something 
for fruit, but so crabbed and sour they would 
make a pig squeal. For amusement, I graft¬ 
ed all the four gradually, or year by year, 
cutting off the old branches and grafting the 
limbs with Roxbury Russets, New-York 
Russets, Baldwins, &c., all the best I could 
find. Now, I have had about ten barrels of 
good apples annually, to put up for winter, 
for three or four years past, besides all we 
used in the family of five, and we have used 
them freely all we wanted, till time to gather 
the winter apples. 
I liaae a yard in front of my house, about 
forty feet square, in front of which are two 
of the Balm of Gilead trees before men¬ 
tioned, which are now large trees, and have 
been left outside of the front fence; but in¬ 
side of the fence I set out, about ten years 
ago, three pear trees of the common summer 
pear, which now give us all the pears we 
want, for they have borne well for about four 
years. From the pear trees to the house, I 
filled the space with flower bed, and have 
had many varieties, say twenty kinds of 
roses, and nearly one hundred kinds of other 
flowers. I have planted on the south side 
of my buildings, next to the passage to the 
barn, plums, peaches, and grapes. The 
peaches have not succeeded well, nor the 
plums, so I cut the plum trees off, and graft¬ 
ed them with the green and purple gage, 
only three or four years ago, and now I have 
plenty of the finest plums I ever saw, so 
that I have to prop the small branches. My 
grapes began to bear last year ; I had about 
a bushel, and I should think about double the 
quantity this year. I have set out some 
quince trees, but they do not bear yet. 
Besides the trees and grape vines, I have 
annually raised about ten or fifteen bushels 
of potatoes, six or seven bushels of beets 
and carrots, some English turnips and ruta 
.v 
