The Belmont chronicle, and farmers, mechanics and manufacturers advocate. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1848-1855, 1854-10-20
AGRICULTURAL.
From The New York Independent.
Henry Ward Beecher on Trees.

on trees. II is written from his farm VI
. among the Berkshire hills; we trust that al
who read the Chronicle will read it,and her e
after be less lavish of the axe.
CHARACTER IN TREES.
There is yet at East Hampton, nourishint
in hearty age, on orchard get out by n,
hands Of my father. And we have heard hin
say, that after an ali ence from home, thu
first impulse, after greeting his own family
was to go out and examine each tree in his
orchard, from root TO top. No man that ev-
er planted tree, or loved one, but knows
how to sympsthize with this feeling. Oliver
Wende II Holmes spent his summer months
upon beautiful farm near Piltsfeld,or which
are half hundred acres the original forest
trees, some of them doubtless FIVE hundred
years old; trees that heard the revolutionary
cannon Tor heard of them.) and before that
the crack oi he rife in every colonial Indian
war, when Miahcom with his fugitive Pc
quots, took refuge in the Berkshire hills. 1t
is said that DR.. Holmes has measured with
tape line every tree on lis place, and knows
each one with intimate personal acquaint-
ance.
/ ITO thegreat tree-loving fraternity we be-
long And our first excursion in Lenox was
to salute our notable trees. We had a ner-
yous anxiety TO see that the axe had not hewn
nor the lightning struck them; that no worm
had gnawed at the root, or cattle at the trunk,
that their branches were not brokon, nor
their leaves fallen from drought. We found
them all standing in their uprightness. They
lifted up their heads toward heaven,and sent
down to US from all their boughs leafy mea-
sure of recognition and affection. Ble.sed..se
the dew that coos their evening leaves, and
the rains that quench their daily thirst May
the storm be as merciful TO them when, in
winter, it roars through their branches, as is
harper Of his harp! Let the snow lie light
| ly on their boughs, and long hence be. the
summer that shall find no leave to clothe
these mobiles @ the pasture! FIRST in our re-
gard, as it is first in the whole nobility of
trees. stands the tchite elm, no sless esteemed
because it is an American tree, known abroad
only by importation, and never seen in all its
magnifcence, exceptin our own valleys
The old oaks Of England are very excellent in
their way, gnarled and rugged. The elm has
strength as significant as they, and grace,
a royalty, which leaves the oak like boor
in comparison. Had the elm been an Eng
lish tree, and had Chaucer seen and loved
and snug il, and even Shakes peare, and every
English poet hung some garland upon it, il,
would have lifted up its head now, not only
the aoblest Of all growing things, but enshri
ned in a Thousand rich associations of histo-
ry and literature. Who ever sees a hap-
thorn or s,oeet-Jriar (the eglantne,) that his
thoughts do not, like bolt of light, burst
through ranks OF poets. and ranges of spark
ling thoughts which have been since England
had written language, and Of which, the
rose, the willow, the eglantine, the hawthorn,
and other scores OF vines or trees have been
the cause as they are now and forever the
suggestions and remembrancesl Who ever
looks upon an oak, and does not think of na-
uies, of storms; of battles on the ocean; of the
noble lyrics of The sea; of English glades; of
| the fugitive Charles, the tree-Inounted mon
| arch; of the Herne oak; Of parks aud forests;
Tuck not excepted; of old baronial halls
with mellow light streaming through diamond
shaped panes upon oaken floors, and oC elabo-
rate carved wainscotings! and who that has
! ever trave led in English seccnd-class cush-
ionlcss cars has not other and less genial re-
membranes of the enduring solidity of the
impervous, unelastic oah!" .-
The elm is the natural wife of the oak, to
Mr.. Beecher's eye, and after explaining this
very POLITICALLY, he comes to the
MUSIC AND MANNERS OF TREES.
But if clouds kindly shield US from the
sun, then we love as we'll to couch down on
the grass some thirty yards off, and watch
the green and dusky white, as the wind turns
the leaves up or down, all along the tremu-
| lous !orest-side. And, by the way, there is
world OF matter in this habit of leaves. In
some trees they have an individuality of
movement in others they move in clusters,
and in others in masses. The leaves of ma
plies move in communities. If one quivers,
they are all quvering together. You think
of the whole tree when you look at it, A
puff of wind whitens the whole forest-side Of
naples. But in the tulp-tree, and all ma
| tive poplars and aspens, each leaf moves By
itself. Under the same wind one is trilling,
another whrling, and another slowly vibra-
ting right and left, each acting quite indepen-
IDENTIFY of the other. 1t is real specimen of
indiuiduaIlSm. The NAPLES are SociaIiStic.-
Both seem to do very well upon their re-
spccted theories. have questioned both as
to this great conflicting problem, association
or individual sovereignty; but their replies,
like same other communications with a world
Of Importance in them, and a solemn SEM
blance of deep revelations, leave me in the
end to make up my own mind on the subject
, the best way can. Still, love to hear it
buzz. A stroke of wind upon the forest, in
dolently swelling and subsiding, is like a
stroke upon hive Of bees, for sound; and
like iirrng fire full ofsparks for upsprng-
ing thoughts and ideal suggestions. The
meIodions which draws out fitting, swarm o
sweet images that play before the eye like
those evening troops of gauzy insects thai
hang betw cen you and the sun,and pipe the
own music, and fit in airy rounds of min
! gled dance as if the whole errand Of thei
) lives was to swing in mazes of sweet music
I But, to return to the leaves, our settled con