The Union and eastern journal. [volume] (Biddeford [Me.]) 1854-1858, 1857-07-31
from hs North Amsriean Rsrisis.
Trees and their Uses.

| tlpilcatlon oil tree painting sOcictlcs, Whosc
works are made manifest along our city
streets, and the bolder advocacy, year by
year, Of ofallowing our pasture and plough
cd land 10 return to its original forest state.
But the tree reform is yet in its earlier
stage, and is hindered by very numerous
and obstinate prcjudices. 1t is still hard
to conviec farmer that he would Dwell
to let his corn.tield become wood, or to
bring the shade of an elm above his young
orchards, or to surround his house with
dampncs and darkness in the folm Of a
grove. To the force of many reasons for
planting trees he is quite inscnsible. He
does not for instance, at all understand
why trees should be planted for the sake
of their associations. or how hr can do as
much for his children by rearing oaks on
his land as by boarding his money in the
bank. lie may melt little at his daugh-
tcr's touching performance of Mr.. Morris's
elegiac ntrcaty to the woodman; but it
is passing weakness, and will not affect
his general purpose to plant, If he plants
at all, for profit and not for posterity.-
Your Yankee would hand down his name
in connection with some enterprise or in
vention, some patent plough, or patent
churn, or patent applc.parer, lot in con-
nectieb Will laurcls and oaks like Daphne
and 'fhe Driids. Yet there are some who
will appreciate even this sentimental rea.
son for planting trees. Any father will
recognize it as beautiful and easy way
of commemorating the birth of children
in his household. Tie members of col
legc class, revisitin the place Of their
early instruction, will see in the tree
which they left there on their parting-day
a p .rmanent memorial of their former
union. Travel strengthens the force OF
this reason. When we discover how wide
and high and sacred are the memories
which are kept ON earth by means Of these
sipns,-whcn we have visited the church.
yard at Stoke, with its "ruggcd yew-trees,"
where Gray lies buried, or the "Burnham
beeches," where he used TO ramble; when
we have looked upon the oak at Penshurst,
which marks the birth, imc of Philip Sid
ncy, or that huge tree at Grafton, where,
nearly four years ago, Edward Plantase-
net first met the Lady Elizabeth Wood
Vile; when we have rested under "Mil-
tons mulberry" in Christ Church Garden,
and remembered Warton under the "Avon
willows; wnen we have walked in that
square Of the silent Certosa, where the
spray Of the fountain still moistens the
great cypress which Michael Angelo plan
ted, or have fingered by that blasted trunk
beneath whose shelter, when its boughs
were green, poor Tasso was wont to look
down over the Eternal City, and to dream
and sigh his life away,-when we have
found everywhere the most famous sites
and e,enis, in the history Of war and
genius and religion, from the massacre at
Clisson to the victory a Marathon, from
the spo, in Cambridge where Washing
ton met the American army to the spot
in Bristol where Augustine held confer
encc with the English bishops or that
most ncient place Of meeting on the
plains Of Mamre, which hold the tradition
of Abraham and the angels, scenes Of faith
AM vdor and romance, fixed and pcrpet-
uated BY these lords Of the forest,-we
como to understand better this sentimen-
tai reason which some esteem so lightly.
This sort Of association, indeed, cannot
generally be planned and provided for
The best associations come by chance, nd
no man can say when he plants tree
that 1t is destined hereafter TO be joined
in memory with any great thing. Yet
many man in his old age feels deeper
attachment to the home where he has
always dwelt, because it is overhung by
the boughs Of the tree which, as sapling,
he put there in his boyhood. The house
has gone to decay, it may be, and he must
build better. But the trees make the
place 50 dear, that he cannot let it pass
from his possession, and his children will
keep it because their fathers trees are
there. In these days Of change and un.
easiness, such bonds to ones native soil
are most important and effective, old
furnitur family portraits, even the buried
bones Of ancestors may 90 with the chill
dren in ;heir restless migrations; but th
venerable trees cannot be carried OF. 10
part with these often costs the hardest
s,ruv Ia u,bo, to r.na;r his broken for
tunes one must sell his paternal acres and
remove to new home far away. AL
feel that It is a sort Of sacrilcge to de.
stroy a tree which has been consccratcd
by any noble association. Every patriot
Efelt the insult, when the British troops IN
Boston cut down and burned for fuel the
Liberty tree; and all Connecticut Ia
mented as a public calamity the fall Of the
Charter Oak. /.
! The aesthetic reason for tree-planting i