The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-10-30

which Is the exception among MOVERS, is the
rule among trees There Ia no tree which
painters delight more In painting than the
pine; and why? A pine Is not a remarkably
beautiful tree; it Is somewhat stiff and prim,
especially In its younger years; for picturesque
ness of contour it falls far below the oak and
the elm. But the pine, more than any other
tree, wages a systematic warfare against the
adverse forces of nature; 1t contends against
them, not singly, but in serred phalauXcs; re-
quring little nourishment, making little dis
play it lives and lives by union. This is what
gives the Norwegian forests their power over
the imagination; in this they perhaps surpass
an Italian landscape as much as the Italian land
scape surpasses them in beauty. Yet when
two together have real beauty, and a charm
that belongs to neither separately
the harmony of strength and grace, of Grmness
and tleXibility. Nowhere have we seen this
more perfectly than in the forests that skirt the
road from Christania to Bergen; the rolling
masses of foliage descend continuously from the
ridges to the valleys, their outline indiscernbe,
and fading into a kind of blue haze. The inter-
mixture of trees is seldom so close as here but
wherever seen it is noticed and remembered in
stinctivey, especially in the early spring. when
the emerald green Of the birch stands out against
the dark masses behind.
Next to the Scandinavian countries Syria aud
Tyrol are the parts of Europe most renowned
for their pine forests. They are, however, rea-
lively less conspicuous to the traveller in those
countries, on account of the greater promi-
scape; and we believe, also, their timber is
not reckoned so good. Yet even Norway yields
to Canada, whose interminable forests are the
great reservoir from which timber is imported
to England. The pines of Europe are seldom of
any great size; but it is said that there are, or
were lately, some in Thuringia that attained the
marvellous height of three hundred feet, an
altitude Gf true) almost rivalling the Wellingto-
mans of California. In England we have long
ceased to have any large forests, whether of
pine or other trees, to boast Of And though
Dartmoor Forest, the Peak Forest, and other
such places are popularly supposed to have been
once what the name at present indicates this
appears to be q misapprehension; the word
forest like the word wood, meant originally
nothing more than n tract of wild untitled coun-
try. Certainly it is difficult to imagine any large
growth of trees of any kind on the barren lime
stone upland to which the name of the Peak
Forest is given. Yet there can be no doubt that
the trees have been very much thinned all over
England in the last two or three centuries. For
example, it is tradition of the Older Inhabitants
that the valley of Troutbcck in Westmoreland,
now comparatively bare, was once n continuous
forest.
1t is, however, the samesassiduous cultivation
which has prevented us from having in England
any woods comparable in size even to those of
Germany, that has rendered our individual trees
as q rule so much larger in growth than those
of the Continent. There are few parts of Eng
land that have not some park conspicuous for
the magnitude of its oaks, its elms or its beeches
OF oaks we have measured one near Albury in
Surrey, which at five feet from the ground mea-
sured nearly twenty-nine feet in circumference.
In Windsor Park is a beech of yet larger di-
mensions; and we remember one on the Barle in
Somersetshre from whose massive trunk sprang
four separate branches, each equal in size to
an ordinary tree. This last, unless we are mis-
taken, grew in a farmyard. 1t is, however,
neither oaks, nor elms nor beeches that have
the largest girth of any English tree, but yews.
Yews like that at Aberedw in Radnorshire, or
that at barley in Derbyshire, when once seen,
will never be forgotten, from their huge size,
their picturesque, battered, venerable look.
There is no tree that has more attracted the
attention of poets. There are few to whom the
description in Roheby of that weird and gloomy
grove on the Greta will not occur nor are Words
worths lines less celebrated on
-"that fraternal four of Borrowdae
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove;
Huge trunks and each particular trunk the growth
OF inteTtwisted hbres serpentine,
Upcoing and inveterately convoved,
Nor uniformed with phantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane"
We hear of yews in Scotland upwards of fifty
six feet in circumference. The yew is perhaps
the only tree that up to extreme old age grows
constantly and incontestably more striking in
appearance: for though there is no tree that does
not improve as it grows to maturity, while there
are many to which certain appearance of anti
guilty is becoming, yet decrepit oak or elm
has lost more by the decay and fall of its
branches than it has gained by the venerable
ness of its trunk. With a yew the reverse is the
case.
The part of the Continent that, of all within
our knowledge, has the most stately deciduous
trees, is Holsten. This comes from circum-
stance which has no doubt partly caused the fine
growth of trees in Overwhelmingly, the per-
sistent raininess of the climate. By the nume-
rous lakes of Holsten, and sloping down to the
sea, are beech groves superior to aHy in the
whole of Germany. 1t is curious, by the way,
why the beech Is so rare a tree in Norway. We
cannot call to mind single specimen of it,
| though planes and other not hardy trees are by
| no means rare near Christania.
The oak, the em and the beech are the I'M
| questioned monarchs of all English vegetation.
| The yew in way stands by itself, as being so
| These trees alone have individual grandeur
| and a grandeur which is not antagonistic TO-
| but rather contains, beauty. We have never
| been able to understand the dictum of Mr.. Rus
kin, that the oak is the least graceful of trees
! The curves in the boughs of well-grown oak
are no doubt separately less beautiful than those
of an ash or beech; but they have harmony
| which more than redeems their individual de-
| fect they suit well with one another. The only
| ugly trees in England (and those not by their
| own fault) are pollard willows. The step from
! oaks and beeches to the finest of our common
| garden-trees, such as sycamores and acacias
| is II step downwards; it is the step from the
grandeur of nature to the symmetry of art; and
yet, we may make the change not not
tainly there will be some to whom a
! single yew rooted in the rock, single oak bear
ing on its bark the records OF ten centuries, Will
| be worth twenty acacas or n hundred planes.
| But yet what an exquisite tree Is, Tor instance
! the sycamore. 1t is the most architectural oil
trees; the boughs spread in horizontal layers,
the leaves are like the fretting on some lofty
| column of cathedral, the bark is like chased
| silver. There are some in the grounds OF 81.
| Johns, Cambridge, with which, in the spring,
| before their leaves are eaten away and married,
| No itnrr1a IA ,,1f hn