A year among the trees

by Wilson Flagg

We very early discover a variety of those woody plants that bear an edible fruit, which is eaten by birds and scattered by them over the land, including many species of bramble. The fruit-bearing shrubs always precede the fruit-bearing trees; but the burnt land is first occupied by those kinds that bear a stone-fruit. Hence great numbers of cherry-trees and wild-plum-trees are found there, as the natural successors of the wild gooseberry and bramble-bushes. These are soon mixed with poplars, limes, and other trees with volatile seeds. But oaks, hickories, and the nut-bearing trees must wait to be planted by squirrels and field-mice and some species of birds. The nut-bearers, therefore, will be the last to appear in a burnt region, for the little quadrupeds that feed upon their fruit will not frequent this spot until it is well covered with shrubbery and other vegetation. If the soil be adapted to the growth of heavy timber, the superior kinds, like the oak, the beech, and the hard maple, will gradually starve out the inferior species, and in the course of time predominate over the whole surface.

When I consider all these relations between plants and animals, I feel assured, if the latter were destroyed that plant their seeds, many species would perish and disappear from the face of the earth. Nature has provided, in all cases, against the destruction of plants, by endowing the animals that consume their fruits with certain habits that tend to perpetuate and preserve them. In this way they make amends for the vast quantities they consume. After the squirrels and jays have hoarded nuts for future use, they do not find all their stores; and they sow by these accidents more seeds than could have been planted by other accidental means, if no living creature fed upon them. Animals are not more dependent on the fruit of these trees for their subsistence, than the trees are upon them for the continuance of their species. And it is pleasant to note that, while plants depend on insects for the fertilization of their flowers, they are equally indebted to a higher order of animals for planting their seeds. The wasteful habits of animals are an important means for promoting this end. The fruit of the oak, the hickory, and the chestnut will soon decay if it lies on the surface of the ground, exposed to alternate dryness and moisture, and lose its power of germination. Only those nuts which are buried under the surface are in a condition to germinate. Many a hickory has grown from a nut deposited in the burrow of a squirrel; and it is not an extravagant supposition that whole forests of oaks and hickories may have been planted in this manner.

These facts are too much neglected in our studies of nature. A knowledge of them, and a consideration of their bearings in the economy of nature, might have saved many a once fertile country from being converted into a barren waste, and may serve yet to restore such regions to their former happy condition. But these little facts are not of sufficient magnitude to excite our admiration, and they involve a certain process of reasoning that is not agreeable to common minds, or even to the more cultivated, which have been confined chiefly to technology. The few facts to which I have alluded in this essay are such as lie at the vestibule of a vast temple that has not yet been entered. I am not ready to say that no single species of the animal creation may not be destroyed without derangement of the method of nature; for thousands have, in the course of time, become extinct by the spontaneous action of natural agents. But there is reason to believe that, if any species should be destroyed by artificial means, certain evils of grievous magnitude might follow their destruction.

The frugivorous birds are the victims of constant persecution from the proprietors of fruit gardens. Their persecutors do not consider that their feeding habits have preserved the trees and shrubs that bear fruit from utter annihilation. They are the agents of nature for distributing vegetables of all kinds that bear a pulpy fruit in places entirely inaccessible to their seeds by any other means. Notwithstanding the strong digestive organs of birds, which are capable of dissolving some of the hardest substances, the stony seeds of almost all kinds of pulpy fruit pass through them undigested. By this providence of nature the whole earth is planted with fruit-bearing trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants, while without it these would ultimately become extinct. This may seem an unwarrantable assertion. It is admitted that birds alone could distribute the seeds of this kind of plants upon the tops of mountains and certain inaccessible declivities, which, without their agency, must be entirely destitute of this description of vegetation. But these inaccessible places are no more dependent on the birds than the plains and the valleys. The difference in the two cases is simply that the one is apparent, like a simple proposition in geometry, and the other requires a course of philosophical reasoning to be perfectly understood.

THE WEEPING WILLOW.

In the early part of my life, one of my favorite resorts during my rambles was a green lane bordered by a rude stone-wall, leading through a vista of overarching trees, and redolent always with the peculiar odors of the season. At the termination of this rustic by-road,—a fit approach to the dwelling of the wood-nymphs,—there was a gentle rising ground, forming a small tract of tableland, on which a venerable Weeping Willow stood,—a solitary tree overlooking a growth of humble shrubs, once the tenants of an ancient garden. The sight of this tree always affected me with sadness mingled with a sensation of grandeur. This old solitary standard, with a few rose-bushes and lilacs beneath its umbrage, was all that remained on the premises of an old mansion-house which had long ago disappeared from its enclosure. Thus the Weeping Willow became associated in my memory, not with the graveyard or the pleasure-ground, but with these domestic ruins, the sites of old homesteads whose grounds had partially reverted to their primitive state of wildness.

Of all the drooping trees the Weeping Willow is the most remarkable, from the perfect pendulous character of its spray. It is also consecrated to the Muse by the part which has been assigned to it in many a scene of romance, and by its connection with pathetic incidents recorded in Holy Writ. It is invested with a moral interest by its symbolical representation of sorrow, in the drooping of its terminal spray, by its fanciful use as a garland for disappointed lovers, and by the employment of it in burial-grounds and in funereal paintings. We remember it in sacred history, associating it with the rivers of Babylon and with the tears of the children of Israel, who sat down under the shade of this tree and hung their harps upon its branches. It is distinguished by the graceful beauty of its outlines, its light green delicate foliage, its sorrowing attitude, and its flowing drapery.

Hence the Weeping Willow never fails to please the sight even of the most insensible observer. Whether we see it waving its long branches over some pleasure-ground, overshadowing the gravel walk and the flower garden, or watching over a tomb in the graveyard, where the warm hues of its foliage yield cheerfulness to the scenes of mourning, or trailing its floating branches, like the tresses of a Naiad, over some silvery lake or stream, it is in all cases a beautiful object, always poetical, always picturesque, and serves by its alliance with what is hallowed in romance to bind us more closely to nature.

It is not easy to imagine anything of this character more beautiful than the spray of the Weeping Willow. Indeed, there is no other tree that is comparable with it in this respect. The American elm displays a more graceful bend of all the branches that form its hemispherical head; and there are several weeping birches which are very picturesque when standing by a natural fountain on some green hillside. The river maple is also a theme of constant admiration, from the graceful flow of its long branches that droop perpendicularly when laden with foliage, but partly resume their erect position in winter, when denuded. But the style of all these trees differs entirely from that of the Weeping Willow, which in its peculiar form of beauty is unrivalled in the whole vegetable kingdom.

It is probable that the drooping trees acquired the name of “weeping,” by assuming the attitude of a person in tears, who bends over and seems to droop. This is the general attitude of affliction in allegorical representations. But this habit is far from giving them a melancholy expression, which is more generally the effect of dark sombre foliage. Hence the yew seems to be a more appropriate tree for burial-grounds, if it be desirable to select one of a sombre appearance. The bending forms of vegetation are universally attractive, by emblemizing humility and other qualities that excite our sympathy. All the drooping plants, herbs, trees, and shrubs are poetical, if not picturesque. Thus lilies, with less positive beauty, are more interesting than tulips.