The trees principally employed in these roadside plantations (already made) are: Elms, 371,621; oaks, 130,828; poplars, 80,853; ash, 73,893; beech, 32,970; maples, 27,755; service trees, 24,630; Norway spruce, 43,767; larch, 41,699. It will be seen from this list that coniferous trees are largely used in Belgium for roadside planting. On the other hand, the report only gives 897 plane trees, 976 acacias, and 672 cherry trees, apple trees, and pear trees, showing that while the Belgian authorities fully recognize the great utility of these roadside plantations in other respects, they especially aim at the production of timber of good quality in a commercial point of view.—The Garden.
An Egyptian Temple.
An Egyptian temple appears to have been one of the most imposing assemblages of buildings that can be well conceived. Avenues lined with hundreds of sphinxes on each side led the worshiper to the sacred precinct for the distance of thousands of feet, and thus the mind, even when remote from the vicinity of the temple, received an impression calculated to excite veneration. This avenue was terminated by a stupendous mass of pyramidal form, above 200 feet wide and about 80 feet high, whose enormous proportion was naught diminished by the vastness of the plain in which it stands, nor by contrast with the mountains that overhung it. In the center of this propyleum is a door, flanked in advance by an obelisk on each side, about 90 feet high, and beside which are figures of colossal dimensions, 45 feet high, sitting as guardians of the sacred portal. The effect of the whole is gigantic, and calculated to impress the coming worshiper with the fullest notions of his insignificance in the scale of material nature. The triumphal gateway being passed, a magnificent court meets the eyes of the beholder, having on each side a colonnade. And this court led to a densely columned hall or vestibule, under the shades of which the crowds of Egypt’s sons and daughters reposed to recover from the exhaustion and fatigue caused by their journey under a burning sun to the fane of their creature god. And here the mind also dwelt awhile on the first impressions produced by the contemplation of the overpowering majesty of the gorgeous mass. For the huge propylea, which inclosed either end of the court, and the hall, with its forest of clustered columns, which the eye could not number, and the playful variety and copiousness of channeled hieroglyphics which left not a space uncovered, and the brilliancy of the pigment which gave an endless variety to the shafts and capitals of the columns, to the beams, the walls and ceilings, bewildered the attention, and left not a moment of repose to the wondering stranger. A lofty central avenue of columns, above 60 feet high, forming, as it were, a triumphal way, leads under a third portal, of dimensions by no means inferior to the others just mentioned, and marked with what care and with what sanctity the priests guarded every approach to the inner parts of the temple. But this gateway passed, and a scene the most sublime burst upon the view. An ample peristyle much larger than the one already passed, presented itself to the eye, probably planted with trees, crowded with metaphoric statues.
On either hand a double avenue of columns, less for convenience than dignity of effect. In the center uprose the portico of the mass of building, that formed the temple itself—the columns in dimension more lofty, in decoration more rich, in proportion more graceful than those of the courts. The dynasties that had ruled over the country up to the period of the erection of this temple have their histories graven on the walls and on the columns. The same pyramidal form gives an appearance of endless durability to the mass, which is surmounted by an immense hollowed cavetto having the center occupied by the sculptured form of the agatho demon, or winged globe and serpents, with outstretched wings extending over the center intercolumniation of the facade, and seemingly a being of another world. Admitted beneath this porch, the minds of the worshipers are prepared for the gloomy inner penetralia, where every object was mysterious and emblematic. Numerous doorways closed by curtains succeeded each other, and led from vestibule to vestibule, which hindered the eye from penetrating with sacrilegious gaze into the inmost sanctuary, all access to it being forbidden to the multitude.
To these vestibules the light of day was denied, and the mind was subdued by the gloom of the spot, for the attention was absorbed by the contemplation of the sacred mysteries of the place and by the effects produced on the attention by the huge incongruous figures of granite—monstrous reflections of the gloomy minds of the religious inhabitants of the sacred precinct, who sought to deify matter and the animal instincts.—T. L. Donaldson.
The White Ash.
“About twenty years ago, Prof. J. L. Budd, of Ames, Iowa, advised keeping the seeds of the ash through the winter in kegs or boxes, mixed with clean moist sand, taking care that they become neither too wet nor too dry. Freezing will do no harm. The ground should be marked and prepared as for corn, and planting at the intersections, placing four to six seeds in the hill. They should be carefully cultivated, and the next spring thinned to one plant in each hill, the vacancies being supplied. By planting thus thickly, the young trees get a straight growth. At the end of six years every alternate row north and south should be thinned out, and at the end of ten years every alternate tree in each row. When twelve years old, on good soil and proper culture the first four years the grove would have 12,000 trees on ten acres, averaging eight inches in diameter. By cutting the stumps close to the ground, and covering with a light furrow on each side, a second growth is obtained in eight or ten years, more valuable than the first.”