Birds and All Nature, Vol. 5, No. 5, May 1899 / Illustrated by Color Photography

by Various

SUNLIGHT and moisture fall upon the earth and find it full of germs of life. At once growths begin each after its own kind. There is such a multitude of them that they have not yet been counted. Each locality has forms peculiar to itself. The places most abundantly watered have different forms from those less favored by rain and dew, and those receiving more heat and sun allow more luxuriant growths than others if the water supply is large.

The business of life and growth is mostly carried on by means of water set in motion and sustained by heat. Those forms of life which reach highest above the surface of the earth are called trees. They are always striving to see what heights they can attain. But the different forms of life have limits set them which they cannot pass. The structure of one tree is limited to carrying its top twenty feet from the ground, that of another is so favored that it can reach twice that height, and others tower high above us and stand for centuries.

But the same tree does not flourish with the same vigor in different places. The nourishment of the soil may favor it or poverty dwarf its growth. Moisture and heat must be supplied or the growth will be slight.

I have stood upon the thick tops of cedar trees on high places in the White mountains near the tree-line. Towards the summit the trees diminish in size until they become veritable dwarfs. They are stunted by the cold. They shrink aside or downward trying to find shelter from the angry winds that are so cutting. Diminutive tree trunks are found that have curled themselves into sheltering crannies of rock and grown into such distorted shapes that they are gathered as curiosities.

The last trees to give up the fight on Mount Adams are the cedars of which I speak. They hug the rock for the little warmth that may be lurking there in remembrance of the sun's kindly rays; they mat themselves together and interlock their branches so as to form a springy covering to the whole ground. One may lie down upon their tops as upon a piece of upholstery, and in the openings below are rabbits and woodchucks and sometimes bears safely hidden from the view of the hunter.

From these ground-hugging trees of the mountain-tops to the great redwoods of our western slopes the mind passes the entire range of tree life. No trees are so great as our redwoods, though in Australia the eucalyptus reaches higher with a comparatively slender trunk. Where the forests are thickest, and the growth of the trees consequently tallest, the eucalyptus towers sometimes four or five hundred feet towards the sky.

The shrinking of mountain trees where the rock affords some warmth and shelter is shown on a larger scale in the forms of trees that stand at the edge of a forest. Where a stream divides the forest we find the trees upon the bank reaching out their branches and spreading luxuriant foliage over the water, because the open air in that direction helps the growth of leaves and twigs. Shade trees by the road-side reach out towards the open space of the road and grow one-sided because the conditions of light and air are better over the road than against the buildings or other trees that are behind them.

The prevailing winds of any country bend the trees largely in one direction. In the vicinity of Chicago, where the return trade winds blow day after day from the southwest, we find the willows of the prairie all bending their heads gracefully to the northeast.

The relations between trees and the fertility of the country around them is a matter of deep interest to man. Portions of France have been productive and afterwards barren because of the abundance of the trees at first and their having afterwards been cut down to supply the wants of man, who desired their material and the ground on which they stood. The rivers of Michigan are not navigable now in some instances where once they were deep with water. The destruction of the forests to supply the lumber and furniture markets of the world has caused less rain to fall, and the snows of winter which formerly lay late in spring beneath the forests now melt at the return of the sun in the early months and are swept with the rush of high water away to the great lakes. Many of the barren wastes in Palestine and other countries, which in olden times blossomed as the rose, have lost their glory with the destruction of their trees.

Men have learned something of the value of the trees to a fertile country and the science of forestry has arisen, not only to determine the means of growing beautiful and useful trees, but also to court the winds of heaven to drop their fatness upon the soil. In the state of Nebraska 800,000,000 planted trees invite the rain and the state is blessed by the response.