pine" groups they have record of on memory's picture-gallery, and will,
I am sure, agree with me as to the informality, dignity and true beauty
of these survivors of the forest, all of which deserve to be
appreciatively cared for, against any encroachment of train, trolley or
lumberman.
I am ashamed to say I have not yet seen the blossoms of the white pine,
which the botanists tell us come in early spring, minute and light
brown, to be followed by the six-inch-long cones which mature the second
year. I promise my camera that another spring it shall be turned toward
these shy blossoms.
[Illustration: The long-leaved pines of the South]
[Illustration: The fountain-like effect of the young long-leaved pine]
Any one who has traveled south of Virginia, even by the Pullman way of
not seeing, cannot fail to have noted the lovely green leaf-fountains
springing up from the ground along the railroads. These are the young
trees of the long-leaved or Southern yellow pine. How beautiful they
are, these narrow leaves of vivid green, more than a foot long, drooping
gracefully from the center outward, with none of the stiffness of our
Northern species! In some places they seem to fairly bubble in green
from all the surface of the ground, so close are they. And the grand
long-leaved pine itself, maintained in lusty vigor above these
greeneries, is a tree of simple dignity, emphasized strongly when seen
at its best either in the uncut forest, or in a planted avenue. We of
the North are helping to ruin the next generation of Southern pines by
lavish use, for decorations, of the young trees of about two feet high,
crowded with the long drooping emerald needles. The little cut-off pine
lasts a week or two, in a parlor--it took four or five years to grow!
All pine-cones are interesting, and there is a great variation between
the different species. The scrub-pine one sees along the railroads
between New York and Philadelphia has rather stubby cones, while the
pitch-pine, beloved of the fireplace for its "light-knots," has a
somewhat pear-shaped and gracefully disposed cone. A most peculiar cone
is that of a variety of the Norway pine, which, among other species
brought from Europe, is valued for ornament. The common jack-pine of the
Middle States hillsides wears symmetrical and handsome cones with
dignity. Cones are, of course, the fruits or seed-holders of the pine,
but the seeds themselves are found at the base of the scales, or parts
of the cones, attached in pairs. Each cone, like an apple, has in its
care a number of seeds, which it guards against various dangers until a
kindly soil encourages the rather slow germination characteristic of the
order.
The nurserymen have imported many pines from Europe, which give pleasing
variety to our ornamental plantings, and aid in enriching the winter
coloring. The Austrian pine and the Scotch pine are welcome additions to
our own pine family. In these days of economic chemistry and a
deficient rag supply, every reader of these words is probably in close
proximity to an important spruce product--paper. The manufacturers say,
with hand on heart, that they do not use _much_ wood pulp, but when one
has passed a great paper-mill flanked on all sides by piles of spruce
logs, with no bales of rags in sight anywhere, he is tempted to think
otherwise! Modern forestry is now planting trees on waste lands for the
pulp "crop," and the common poplar is coming in to relieve the spruces.
Beautiful trees are these spruces and firs, either in the forest or when
brought by the planter to his home grounds. The leaves are much shorter
than those of most pines, and clothe the twigs closely. There is a vast
variety in color, too, from the wonderful whitish or "glaucous" blue of
the Colorado blue spruce, to the deep shining green of Nordmann's fir, a
splendid introduction from the Caucasus. Look at them, glistening in the
winter sun, or drooping with the clinging snow; walk in a spruce wood,
inhaling the bracing balsamic fragrance which seems so kindly to the
lungs; hark to the music of the wind in their tops, telling of health
and purity, of God's love and provision for man's mind and heart, and
you will begin to know the song of the firs. To really hear this grand
symphony, for such it then becomes, you must listen to the wind playing
on the tops of a great primeval coniferous forest, of scores and
hundreds of acres or miles in extent. And even then, many visits are
needed, for there are movements to this symphony--the allegro of the
gale, the scherzo of the easy morning breeze, the deep adagio of a
rain-storm, and the andante of warm days and summer breezes, when you
may repose prone upon a soft carpet of pine needles, every sense made
alert, yet soothed, by the master-theme you are hearing.
There is a little wood of thick young pines, interspersed with hard
maple and an occasional birch, close by the lake of the Eagles, where my
summers are made happy. The closeness of the pines has caused their
lower branches to die, as always in the deep forest, and the falling
needles, year by year, have deepened the soft brown carpet that covers
the forest floor. Some one, years ago, struck by the aisles that the
straight trunks mark out so clearly, called this the "Cathedral Woods."
The name seems appropriate at all times, but especially when, on a warm
Sunday afternoon, I lie at ease on the aromatic carpet, hearing the soft
organ tones in the pine tops, and drinking in God's forest message.
[Illustration: An avenue of white pines]
I have visited these pine woods at midnight, when a full moon, making
brilliant the near-by lake, gave but a ghostly gloom in the deep, deep
silence of the Cathedral; but, more impressive, I have often trodden
through in a white fog, when the distance was misty and dim, and the
aisles seemed longer and higher, and to lead one further away from the
trifles of temper and trial. Indeed, I do not believe that any one who
has but once fully received from the deep forest that which it gives out
so freely and constantly can ever think of things trivial, or of minor
annoyances, while again within its soothing portals.
But of the trees of the forest of pine and spruce it must be noted that
sometimes the deepest, glossiest green of the leaves as presented to
the eye only hides the dainty, white-lined interior surface of those
same leaves. To the outside, a somber dignity, unassailable, untouched
by frost or sun, protective, defenseful, as nature often appears to the
careless observer; but inside is light, softly reflected, revealing
unsuspected delicacies of structure and finish.
To us who are not woodsmen or "timber-cruisers" the most familiar of all
the spruces is the introduced form from Norway. Its yellowish green
twigs are bright and cheerful, and in specimens that have reached the
fruiting age the crown of cones, high up in the tree, is an additional
charm, for these soft brown "strobiles," as the botanist calls them, are
smooth and regular, and very different from those of the rugged pines. I
have often been told that the Norway spruce was short-lived, and that it
became unkempt in age; but now that I have lived for ten years and more
beside a noble specimen, I know that the change from the upreaching push
of youth to the semi-drooping sedateness of maturity is only a taking on
of dignity. There stands on the home grounds of a true tree-lover in
Pennsylvania a Norway spruce that has been untouched by knife or
disaster since its planting many years ago. No pruning has shortened in
its "leader" or top, no foolish idea of "trimming it up" has been
allowed to deprive it of the very lowest branches, which, in
consequence, now sweep the ground in full perfection, while the
unchecked point of the tree still aspires upward forty feet above. A
beautiful object is this tree--perhaps the most beautiful of all the
conifers in my friend's great "pinetum," with its scores of rare
species. Let me ask, then, those who would set this or any other tree of
evergreen about the home, to see to it that the young tree from the
nursery has all its lower branches intact, and that its top has never
been mutilated. With care, such specimens may be obtained and
successfully transplanted, and will grow in time to a lovely old age of
steady greenness.
The balsam fir is almost indistinguishable from the Norway spruce when
young, but soon grows apart from it in habit, and is hardly as
desirable, even though a native. It is rich in the true balsamic odor;
and this, again, is its destruction; for one "spruce pillow" may
destroy a half dozen trees!
[Illustration: Cones of the white spruce]
The white cedar, our common juniper, with its aromatic blue berries or
fruits, is perhaps the most familiar of all the native evergreens. It
comes to us of Pennsylvania all too freely at Christmas time, when the
tree of joy and gifts may mean, in the wholesale, sad forest
destruction. This juniper I have associated particularly with the
dogwood and the red-bud, to the bloom of which it supplies a most
perfect background in the favorite Conewago park, a purely natural
reservation of things beautiful along the Pennsylvania railroad. Its
lead-pencil sister, the red cedar, reaches our literary senses as
closely as does the pulp-making spruce!
I might write much of the rare introduced cypresses from Japan and
China, and of the peculiar variations that have been worked out by the
nurserymen among the native pines and firs; yet this would not be talk
of the trees of the open ground, but rather of the nursery and the park.
Also, if I had but seen them, there would be much to say about the
magnificent conifers of the great West, from the giant red-woods, or
sequoias, of the Mariposa grove in California to the richly varied pines
of the Rockies. But I can only suggest to my readers the intimate
consideration of all this great pine family, so peculiarly valuable to
mankind, and the use of some of the pines and spruces about the home for
the steady cheer of green they so fully provide.
Apples
Well do I remember one of the admonitions of my youth, brought upon me
by an attempt to take apple-blossoms from a tree in bloom because they
were beautiful. I was told that it was wrong to pluck for any purpose
the flowers of fruit trees, because the possible fruitage might thereby
be reduced. That is, feeding the eye was improper, but it was always in
order to conserve all the possibilities for another organ of the body.
In those days we had not learned that nature provides against
contingencies, and that not one-tenth of all the blossoms would be
needed to "set" as much fruit as the tree could possibly mature.
The apple, well called the king of fruits, is worthy of all admiration
as a fruit; but I do not see why that need interfere in the least with
its consideration as an object of beauty. On the contrary, such
consideration is all the better for the apple, which is not only most
desirable and pleasing in its relation to the dessert, the truly
celebrated American pie, the luscious dumpling of the housewife, and the
Italian's fruit-stand of our cities, but is at the same time a
benefaction to the eye and the sense of beauty, in tree, in blossom, and
in fruit.
It is of the esthetic value of the apple I would write, leaving its
supreme place in pomology unassailed. Look at the young apple tree in
the "nursery row," where it has been growing a year since it was
"budded"--that is, mysteriously changed from the wild and untamed fruit
of nature to the special variety designed by the nurseryman. It is a
straight, shapely wand, in most varieties, though it is curious to find
that some apples, notably the favorite Rhode Island Greening, start in
promptly to be picturesquely crooked and twisty. As it grows and
branches under the cultivation and guidance of the orchardist, it
maintains a lusty, hearty aspect, its yellowish, reddish or brownish
twigs--again according to variety--spreading out to the sun and the air
freely. A decade passes, and the sparse showing of bloom that has
decorated it each spring gradually gives place to a great glory of
flowers. The tree is about to bear, and it assumes the character of
maturity; for while it grows on soberly for many years, there is now a
spreading, a sort of relaxation, very different from the vigorous
upshooting of its early youth. After a crop or two, the tree has become,
to the eye, the familiar orchard member, and it leans a little from the
blasts of winter, twists aside from the perpendicular, spreads
comfortably over a great expanse of ground, and settles down to its
long, useful, and truly beautiful life.
While the young orchard is trim and handsome, I confess to a greater
liking for the rugged old trees that have followed blossom with fruit in
unstinted profusion for a generation. There is a certain character of
sturdy good-will about these substantial stems that the clinging snows
only accentuate in winter. The framework of limb and twig is very
different from that of the other trees, and the twisty lines seem to
mean warmth and cheer, even against a frosty sky. And these old
veterans are house trees, too--they do not suggest the forest or the
broad expanse of nature, but, instead, the proximity of man and the
home, the comfortable summer afternoon under their copious leafage, the
great piles of ruddy-cheeked fruit in autumn.
[Illustration: An apple orchard in winter]
I need hardly say anything of the apple-blossoms, for those who read
these words are almost certain to have long appreciated their delicately
fragrant blush and white loveliness. The apricot and the cherry are the
first of the fruit trees to sing the spring song, and they cover
themselves with white, in advance of any sign of green leaves on their
twigs. The apple has an advantage; coming more deliberately, the little
pink buds are set amidst the soft greens of the opening foliage, and the
leaves and flowers expand together in their symphony of color and
fragrance. The grass has grown lush by this time, the dandelions are
punctuating it with gold, and everything is in the full riot of
exuberant springtime.
But there are apples and apples and apples. Even the plain orchard
gives us a difference in flowers, as well as in tree aspect. Notice the
trees this coming May; mark the flat, white flowers on one tree, the
cup-shaped, pink-veined blooms on another. Follow both through the
fruiting, and see whether the sweeter flower brings the more sugary
fruit. This fact ascertained, perhaps it may be followed up by
observation of the distinctive color of the twigs and young
branches--for there are wide differences in this respect, and the canny
tree-grower knows his pets afar.
Perhaps there is a "crab" in the old orchard, ready to give the greatest
burst of bloom--for the crab-apple flower is usually finer and more
fragrant than any other of the cultivated forms. It is an especial
refuge of the birds and the bees, you will find, and it invites them
with its rare fragrance and deeper blush, so that they may work all the
more earnestly at the pollination without which all this richness of
bloom would be ineffective in nature's reproductive scheme.
[Illustration: When the apple trees blossom]
This same crab-apple is soon to be, as its brilliant fruit matures, a
notable object of beauty, for few ornamental trees can vie with its
display of shining color. There was a great old crab right in the flower
garden of my boyhood home, amid quaint box-trees, snowballs and lilacs.
Lilies-of-the-valley flourished in its shadow, the delicate
bleeding-heart mingled with old-fashioned irises and peonies at its
feet. From early spring until mid-August the crab-apple held court of
beauty there--and an always hungry boy often found something in addition
to beauty in the red and yellow fruits that were acid but aromatic.
With a little attention, if one would plant crab-apples for their
loveliness of fruit hue and form, a fine contrast of color may be had;
for some varieties are perfect in clear yellow, against others in
deepest scarlet, bloom-covered with blue haze, and yet others which
carry all the colors from cream to crimson--the latter as the warm sun
paints deeper.
Why do we not plant more fruit trees for beauty? Not one of our familiar
fruits will fail us in this respect, if so considered. The apricot will
often have its white flowers open to match the purity of the last snow,
the cherry will follow with a burst of bloom, the apples and crab-apples
will continue the show, aided by plum and pear and peach, and the
quince--ah, there's a flower in a green enamel setting!--will close the
blooming-time. But the cherry fruits now redden in shining roundness,
the earlier apples throw rich gleams of color to the eye, and there is
chromatic beauty until frost bids the last russets leave their stems,
leaving bare the framework of the trees, to teach us in lines of
symmetry and efficiency how strength and elegance are combined in
nature's handiwork. Do you fear that some of the fruit may be taken?
What of it? Plant for beauty, and the fruit is all extra--give it away
freely, and pass on to others some of God's good gifts, to your own true
happiness!
There is another crab-apple that is distinctive in its elegance, color
and fragrance. It is the true "wild crab" of Eastern North America, and
one who makes its acquaintance in blooming time will never forget it.
The tree is not large, and it is likely to be set with crooked, thorny
branches; but the flowers! Deep pink or rosy red chalices, rather longer
than the commonplace apple-blossom, and hanging on long and slender
stems in a certain picturesquely stiff disposition, they are a joy for
the senses of sight and fragrance. This notable native may be found on
rich slopes and in dry glades--it is not fond of swamps. It is grown
by some enlightened nurserymen, too, and can well be planted in the home
grounds to their true adornment. The blossoms give way to form handsome
yellow fruits, about an inch in diameter, which are themselves much more
ornamental than edible, for even the small boy will not investigate a
second time the bitter flesh. I have heard that a cider of peculiar
"hardness" and potency, guaranteed to unsettle the firmest head, is made
from these acid fruits--but I have not found it necessary to extend my
tree studies in that direction.
[Illustration: The Spectabilis crab in bloom]
The states west of Kansas do not know this lovely wild crab, to which
the botanists give a really euphonious designation as _Pyrus coronaria_.
There is a prairie-states crab-apple, which I have never seen, but
which, I am told, has nothing like the beauty of our exquisite Eastern
native. This Western species lacks the long stem and the bright color of
the flowers of our favorite, and its fruits, while quite as viciously
sour, are a dull and greasy green. The great West has many other things,
but we have the wild crab-apple.
Rather between, as to beauty, is the native crab-apple of the Southland,
which is known as the Soulard crab. It is not as attractive as our own
Eastern gem, a pure native possession, and one which our foreign friends
envy us.
Curiously enough, our own fruiting apple is not a native of America. It
was at a meeting of a New England pomological association that I heard,
several years ago, an old man of marvelous memory and power of
observation tell of his recollections of seventy years, notable among
which was his account of seeing the first good apples, as a boy, during
a visit in the state of New York. Think of it! the most widely grown and
beautiful of all our fruits hardly older than the railroad in America!
We owe the apples we eat to Europe, for the start, the species being
probably of Himalayan origin. America has greatly developed the apple,
however, as one who has looked over the fruit tables at any great
exposition will promptly testify, and nearly all our really good
varieties are of American origin. Moreover, we are the greatest
apple-growers in the world, and the yearly production probably exceeds
a hundred millions of barrels.
[Illustration: Fruits of the wild crab]
The curious story of "Johnny Appleseed" is given us by historians, who
tell us of this semi-religious enthusiast who roamed barefoot over the
wilds of Ohio and Indiana a century ago, sowing apple-seeds in the
scattered clearings, and living to see the trees bearing fruit,
selections from which probably are interwoven among the varieties of
today. New varieties of apples, by the way, come from seeds sown, and
trees grown from them, with a bare chance that one in ten thousand may
be worth keeping. When a variety seems thus worthy, "buds" or "scions"
from the original tree are "budded" or "grafted" by the nurseryman into
young seedling trees, which are thus changed into the selected sort. To
sow the seeds of your favorite Baldwin does not imply that you will get
Baldwin trees, by any means; you will more likely have a partial
reversion to the acid and bitter original species.
It is not only for the fruit that we are indebted to the Old World, but
also for some distinctively beautiful and most ornamental varieties of
the apple, not by any means as well known among us as they ought to be.
The nurserymen sell as an ornamental small tree a form known as
"Parkman's double-flowering crab," which produces blooms of much beauty,
like delicate little roses. Few of them, however, know of the glorious
show that the spring brings where there is a proper planting of the
Chinese and Japanese crab-apples, with some other hybrids and varieties.
To readers in New England a pilgrimage to Boston is always in order. In
the Public Gardens are superb specimens of these crab-apples from the
Orient, as well as those native to this continent, and for several weeks
in May they may be enjoyed. They _are_ enjoyed by the Bostonians, who
are in this, as in many things, better served by their authorities than
is any other American city. What other city, for instance, gives its
people such a magnificent spring show of hyacinths, tulips, daffodils
and the like?
It is at the wonderful Arnold Arboretum, that Mecca of tree-lovers just
outside of Boston and really within its superbly managed park system,
that the greatest show of the "pyrus family," as the apples and pears
are botanically called, may be found. Here have been gathered the lovely
blooming trees of all the hardy world, to the delight of the eye and the
nose, and the education of the mind. To me the most impressive of all
was a wonderful Siberian crab (one must look for _Pyrus baccata_ on the
label, as the Arboretum folks are not in love with "common" names) close
by the little greenhouses. Its round head was purely white, with no
hint of pink, and the mass of bloom that covered it was only punctuated
by the green of the expanding leaves. The especial elegance of this crab
was in its whiteness, and that elegance was not diminished by the later
masses of little yellow and red, almost translucent, fruits.
A somewhat smaller tree is commonly called the Chinese flowering apple,
and its early flowers remind one strongly of the beauty of our own wild
crab, as they are deeper in color than most of the crabs, being almost
coral-red in bud. This "spectabilis," as it is familiarly called, is a
gem, as it opens the season of the apple blooms with its burst of pink
richness.
The beauty-loving Japanese have a festival at the time of the
cherry-blooming--and it is altogether a festival of beauty, not
connected with the food that follows the flowers. They actually dare to
cut the blossoms, too, for adornment, and all the populace take time to
drink in the message of the spring. Will we workaday Americans ever dare
to "waste" so much time, and go afield to absorb God's provision of soul
and sense refreshment in the spring, forgetting for the time our shops
and desks, our stores and marts?
[Illustration: The beauty of a fruiting apple branch]