Every one is familiar with the Butternut-tree. Its fruit being more easily obtained than that of the hickory, and ripe at an earlier period, the tree is generally plundered before the time for gathering it. The outer rind is pulpy, and full of a bitter sap that blackens the hands when pressed out by cracking the nuts in a green state; for the kernel is ripe while the shell is still green. This stain may be removed by any fresh vegetable acid; and for this purpose boys generally procure the leaves of sheep-sorrel, with which they rub the stains from their hands, and after washing in soft water it is found to be entirely removed, if no soap has been used. I am not sure that painters would see much to admire in this tree; but to a native of New England it is so pleasantly associated with juvenile feasts of nuts in the early autumn, gratuitously strewed by the green wayside, and with the simplicity of country life, that it is difficult to see in the form of this tree anything we do not admire. If its foliage is thin, its proportions are handsome and symmetrical, and when in its prime there is no tree that better adorns a rustic enclosure. The Butternut puts forth its leaves about a week earlier than the hickory. It is common in all the New England States, especially on the Green Mountain range, from the northern parts of New Hampshire to the Sound.
THE BLACK WALNUT.
The Black Walnut is common in all the United States below the latitude of Long Island. It is especially abundant in Pennsylvania, and is also found singly and in small scattered groups in New England. It is a larger and more hardy and rapid-growing tree than the English walnut, but it bears an inferior fruit. This tree does not differ from the butternut in general characters, but it is of greater height and more majestic in appearance. It has very long pinnate leaves, of a pure untarnished green and a warmer look than the darker foliage of the hickory. Both trees produce an elegant wood for cabinet-work, but that of the Black Walnut is preferred, though the wood of the butternut is nearer the color of mahogany.
THE WHORTLEBERRY PASTURE.
Thoreau relates that he once thought of whortleberrying as an occupation for a livelihood. This was said in a quaint and paradoxical humor, but there are multitudes who can sympathize with the feelings that prompted his remark. As a quiet outdoor amusement, it is not surpassed either by angling or botanizing; and I cannot see why the whortleberry field should not have its Izaak Walton as well as the lily-pond or the trout-stream. The freedom enjoyed in the open pasture, the simple and honest people whom we meet there, the tiresome, but still agreeable and emulative task of picking the fruit, are only a fraction of our enjoyments. The chirping of various insects, and their constant sportiveness among the bushes; the motions of birds and the plaintive melody of the wood-sparrow, which is tuneful nearly the whole month of August,—prepare us to be cheerful and delighted with all things. The cattle feeding carelessly upon the hillsides, the scattered groups of trees and the cool shadows they cast upon the green turf, the sweetness of the air, our unrestrained rambling, the precipitous rocks that intercept our way only to disclose a bower of raspberries protected by their walls, the mossy seats under umbrageous pines, the countless wild flowers on every knoll, the pleasant sensation of rest after weariness and of coolness after the heat of exercise and weather, all combine to render the whortleberry pasture a field of delight surpassing all that is written of gardens of orange and myrtle.
The whortleberry is peculiarly an American fruit; though a few species are common in Middle and Northern Europe, they are in no part of the world so abundant as in North America. The whortleberry tribe of plants form a conspicuous feature of New England landscape, especially near the coast. No single species has been domesticated, though any one of them would well reward the labor of the cultivator if the fruit could not be obtained from the fields. Their fruit is well known to the inhabitants of the Eastern States. Very little has been written upon it, and few persons are aware of its importance to the inhabitants of North America. Botanists make no generic distinction between the whortleberry and the blueberry; but we may distinguish the two at once by their different flavor, and not by their color. The whortleberry is less acidulous, less mucilaginous, and contains a harder seed than the blueberry. The flowers of the two species differ as widely as their fruits: those of the blueberry are large and white; those of the whortleberry are greenish, tipped with red, smaller and more contracted in the mouth. There is no family of plants that runs into a greater number of varieties in a wild state; but I have never seen one that seemed to possess the characters of the blueberry and whortleberry combined. With regard to their colors it may be remarked, that while there are blueberries which are black, there is no whortleberry which is purely blue.
It may truly be asserted that if the cherry and the whortleberry, with all their varieties, were to become extinct, the want of the latter would be most painfully felt by the mass of our population. We were not taught by the Europeans to appreciate the value of our wild fruits. “In Scotland,” said one of a company of Scotch girls whom I met in a whortleberry field, “we have no wild fruits. All our fruits are in gardens.” In this country, where whortleberries are so common as to be found in all wild lands that are not densely wooded, their fruit constitutes one of our staple productions, of greater value to us than even the cranberry, except as an article of export. During about three months, from the first of July to the last of September, millions of bushels of whortleberries are consumed in this part of the country. People are often deceived by measuring the importance of any article according to its commercial value. Hence the whortleberry pastures are called “waste lands.” But were these lands deprived of their products of wild fruit, the want of it would be a grievous affliction to the community. How many poor families earn their livelihood in summer by gathering whortleberries for the market! How many delightful excursions does this fruit-gathering annually afford to the children and youths of our land! The robin, the waxwing, and other birds that consume our cherries, would be diverted from the orchard and the garden by a good supply of fruit from the bushes of an adjoining field; and our cultivators might prevent their depredations by planting the different species by the sides of their fences and in all open situations which are not adapted to tillage.
As an object in the landscape and a field for the botanist and student of nature the whortleberry pasture is worthy of study and full of attractions. This scenery, with all the spontaneous mapping of its beds of shrubbery, its groups of trees, its tussocks of mosses and ferns, its little green hollows spangled with flowers, and its projecting rocks covered with brambles, all intersected widely by the smooth greensward, is peculiar to New England. In the Southern States the whortleberry-bushes are more promiscuously scattered, and are not seen in this delightful grouping, forming with the trees, fruits, and flowers a true symbol of the beneficence of nature. A genuine whortleberry pasture is one of the most beautiful of gardens,—a modern Vale of Tempe, a true Eden,—inasmuch as it is without culture; and abounds from early spring till waning autumn in the most interesting shrubs and flowers of our clime; in August and September sparkling with clusters of shining black and azure berries, and possessing a value which only a New-Englander knows how to prize.
The whortleberry pasture consists chiefly of upland, extending out occasionally into a level meadow, but generally of a hilly and uneven surface, covered with groves and coppice. The pasture must have been fed many years by cattle to acquire its distinguishing features. Without the grazing of these animals the ground would be evenly covered with vines and bushes. The cattle, while feeding upon the grass, consume many of the young plants which have not become woody, and in their irregular course gradually produce this grouping in a manner which is entirely inimitable by art. Hence in an old field the scattered beds of shrubbery, with greensward between them, might be compared to a map of islands, the grass being represented on the map by the water and the bushes by the land; the greensward sometimes widening into a broad expanse of verdure, and then beautifully intersected by intricate masses of shrubbery.
In the lands surrounding the older townships only do we see the whortleberry pasture in the perfection of this picturesque grouping, laid out according to the geometry of nature. In the new settlements the bushes are mixed with trees and stumps in the clearings, and have not acquired any arrangement. But if a whortleberry field has long been pastured by cattle that seldom browse upon the shrubs, the different kinds of vegetation stand in beautiful groups of a thousand various forms, like the figures on tapestry. The rocks that lift up their gray heads, sometimes with smooth flat surfaces, sometimes in lofty protuberances, covered with liverworts and patches of variegated lichens and mosses, and fringed on their edges with diminutive shrubs, form no unimportant part of this peculiar scenery. In every old pasture the different kinds of shrubs are more or less distinctly arranged into groups; some, for example, consisting chiefly of bayberry, others of roses or perhaps of brambles. But in general the plats consist of a promiscuous variety of species, in which some one predominates. One of the most common of these social plants is the sweet-fern, universally prized for its fragrance, at the very name of which we are inspired with pleasant recollections of youthful wanderings. The lambkill is especially prone to form exclusive assemblages, and the most beautiful individuals, when in flower, are generally on the outside of the group.