A year among the trees

by Wilson Flagg

The Ash is a favorite in Europe, though deficient there in autumnal tints. It is a tree of the first magnitude, and has been styled in classical poetry the Venus of the forest, from the general beauty of its proportions and flowing robes. The English, however, complain of the Ash, on account of its tardy leafing in the spring and its premature denudation in the autumn. “Its leaf,” says Gilpin, “is much tenderer than that of the oak, and sooner receives impression from the winds and frost. Instead of contributing its tint, therefore, in the wane of the year, among the many colored offspring of the woods, it shrinks from the blast, drops its leaf, and in each scene where it predominates leaves wide blanks of desolate boughs amid foliage yet fresh and verdant. Before its decay we sometimes see its leaf tinged with a fine yellow, well contrasted with the neighboring greens. But this is one of nature’s casual beauties. Much oftener its leaf decays in a dark, muddy, unpleasing tint.”

The Ash is remarkable for a certain trimness and regularity of proportion, and it seldom displays any of those breaks so conspicuous in the outlines of the hickory, which in many points it resembles. The trunk rises to more than an average height before it is subdivided; but we do not see the central shaft above this subdivision, as in the poplar and the fir. Lateral branches seldom shoot from the trunk, save, as I have sometimes observed, a sort of bushy growth, surrounding it a little below the angles made by the lower branches. It is called in Europe “the painters’ tree.” But George Barnard, alluding to this fact, remarks: “Unlike the oak, the Ash does not increase in picturesqueness with old age. The foliage becomes rare and meagre, and its branches, instead of hanging loosely, often start away in disagreeable forms.”

North America contains a greater number of species of the genus Fraxinus than any other part of the globe. But three of these only are common in New England,—the white, the red, and the black Ash. The first is the most frequent both in the forest and by the roadsides, the most beautiful, and the most valuable for its timber. All the species have pinnate and opposite leaves, and opposite branches in all the recent growth; but as the tree increases in size, one of the two invariably becomes abortive, so that we perceive this opposite character only in the spray. The leaflets are mostly in sevens, not so large nor so unequal as in the similar foliage of the hickory.

The white and the red Ash have so nearly the same external characters, that it requires some study to distinguish them. They do not differ in their ramification, nor in their autumnal hues. The black Ash may be readily identified by the leaves, which are sessile, and like those of the elder; also by the dark bluish color of the buds and newly formed branches, and the slenderness of its proportions. It seldom attains a great height or size, and is chiefly confined to swamps and muddy soils. The wood of this species is remarkable for strength and elasticity. The remarks of George Barnard respecting the localities of the Ash in Europe will apply to the American species: “Though seen everywhere, its favorite haunt is the mountain stream, where its branches hang gracefully over the water, adding much beauty to the scene. It is to be met with in every romantic glen and glade, now clinging with half-covered roots to a steep, overhanging cliff, and breaking with its light, elegant foliage the otherwise too abrupt line, or with its soft warm green relieving the monotonous coloring of the rocks or the sombre gray of some old ruin.”

There are some remarkable superstitions and traditionary notions connected with the Ash-tree. The idea that it is offensive, and even fatal, to serpents, is not of modern origin, though not a rustic laborer can be found who would not consider an Ash-tree planted before his house as a charm against their intrusion. According to Pliny, if a serpent be surrounded on one side by fire and on the other by a barricade of the leaves and branches of the Ash-tree, he will escape through the fire, rather than through its fatal boughs. It is related in the Edda that man was first created from the wood of this tree, and it is not improbable that this superstition has some connection with the fable of Adam and Eve, and through this with the supposed antipathy of the serpent for the Ash-tree.

There is a saying in Great Britain, that, if the Ash puts forth its leaves before the oak, the following summer will be wet; but if the leafing of the oak precedes that of the Ash, it will be dry. I am not aware that any such maxim has obtained credence in the United States.

ANIMALS OF THE PRIMITIVE FOREST.

European travellers in this country frequently allude to the American forest as remarkable for its solitude and deficiency of animal life. Captain Hardy remarks that a foreigner is struck with surprise, when rambling through the bush, at the scarcity of birds, rabbits, and hares, and is astonished when in the deepest recesses of the wild country he sees but little increase of their numbers. When paddling his canoe through lake and river, he will startle but few pairs of exceedingly timid waterfowl where in Europe they swarm in multitudes. This scarcity of animals, I would remark, is not peculiar to the American wilderness. The same fact has been observed in extensive forests both in Europe and Asia; and in proportion as the traveller penetrates into their interiors he finds a smaller number of animals of almost every species. Birds, insects, and quadrupeds will multiply, like human beings, in a certain ratio with the progress of agriculture, so long as there remains a sufficiency of wild wood to afford them a refuge and a home. They use the forest chiefly for shelter, and the open grounds for forage; the woods are their house, the meadows their farm.

I had an opportunity for observing these facts very early in life, when making a pedestrian tour through several of the States. I commenced my journey in autumn, and being alone, I was led to take note of many things which, had any one accompanied me, would have escaped my observation. After passing a few weeks of the winter in Nashville, I directed my course through Tennessee and Virginia, and was often led through extensive ranges of forest. I never saw birds in any part of the United States so numerous as in the woods adjoining the city of Nashville, which was surrounded with immense cornfields and cotton plantations. But while walking through the country I could not help observing the scarcity of birds and small quadrupeds in the woods whenever I was at a long distance from any village or habitation. Sometimes night would draw near before I had reached a hamlet or farm-house, where I might take lodging. On such occasions the silence of the woods increased my anxiety, which was immediately relieved upon hearing the cardinal or the mocking-bird, whose cheerful notes always indicated my approach to cultivated fields and farms.

That this scarcity of animal life is not peculiar to the American forest we have the testimony of St. Pierre, who says of the singing birds: “It is very remarkable that all over the globe they discover an instinct which attracts them to the habitations of man. If there be but a single hut in the forest, all the singing birds of the vicinity come and settle round it. Nay, they are not to be found except in places which are inhabited. I have travelled more than six hundred leagues through the forests of Russia, but never met with small birds except in the neighborhood of villages. On making the tour of fortified places in Russian Finland with the general officers of the corps of engineers with which I served, we travelled sometimes at the rate of twenty leagues a day without seeing on the road either village or bird. But when we perceived the sparrows fluttering about, we concluded we must be near some inhabited place. In this indication we were never once deceived.”