A nobleness lies in the nature of the living trees themselves; for,
though we may call them unconscious, it is life still, and they are
expressive with meaning. Far simpler in their habits and requirements
than the broadleaf trees, they are, nevertheless, more generous to
man. Endurance and hardship is their lot, but noble form of trunk and
crown and useful soft wood are the products of their life. There is no
forest mantle like theirs to shield from the blast, especially when it
is formed of young thickets of the simple but refined spruces and firs.
When, at the last, they yield their life to man, it seems to me there
is something exalted even in the manner of their fall. The tree hardly
quivers under the blows of the ax; a mere trembling in the outermost
twigs, and then, hardly as if cut off from the source of life, the
tall, straight form sinks slowly to the earth.
Another common attribute of evergreen forests is their characteristic
_silence_. Birds do not frequent them as much as the leafy forests.
In these solitudes, far removed from village and farm, there is often
no sound but the ring of the distant ax and the sough of the wind. In
winter, as we push through the thickets of small spruces or hemlocks,
or stand for a while beneath lofty pines, while all around is muffled
in snow, the silence seems sanctified and vaster than elsewhere.
In addition to their grandeur and sublimity, and their silence, they
are distinguished for an element of _softness_. This is seen in the
delicate texture and pure color of their foliage, the effect of which
is heightened by being massed in the dense forest. We have already
noticed the mild olive shade of the eastern white pine. When the wind
blows through it, it seems as if the foliage were melting away. It
would be difficult, also, to match the green color of the red fir,
especially as it looks in winter; or the luxuriant bluish-gray of the
western blue spruce.
A further softening in the general effect of evergreen forests is
produced by the manner in which the trees intermingle in the dense
mass, merging their sharp, individual outlines in the rounded contours
and upper surfaces of the combined view. Near at hand, of course,
we cannot but notice the attenuated forms and jagged edges of the
trees, which, indeed, are interesting enough in themselves; but on
looking gradually into the distance we find them thatching into one
another, closing up interstices and smoothing away irregularities in a
remarkable way. This is particularly true of the spruces and firs; but
in some of the opener pine forests, as, for example, in the longleaf
pines of the South, the boughs and crowns themselves are rounded into
masses and pleasing contours. It should be remembered, also, that these
effects are present in winter as well as in summer.
The element of softness is sometimes brought into very beautiful
association with certain effects of mists and clouds. The indistinct
contours and delicate lights of the drifting vapors and cloud forms,
as they wander across the trees, blend with the serene aspect of the
forest. At other times the clouds gather into banks and lie motionless
in some valley or rest like a veil upon the mountain tops. Wordsworth
has described these effects in his graphic way by saying,—
Far-stretched beneath the many-tinted hills,
A mighty waste of mist the valley fills,
A solemn sea! whose billows wide around
Stand motionless, to awful silence bound:
Pines, on the coast, through mist their tops uprear
That like to leaning masts of stranded ships appear.
In spring or summer just before sunrise it is very beautiful to see how
these banks of vapor are lifted by the stirring airs of the dawn, how
the draperies of mist draw apart and open up vistas of the trees, which
drip with moisture, and are presently illumined by the broad shafts of
sunlight that pour down upon them.
Lest it be thought that only the dense coniferous forests possess
superior qualities, I desire to put in a plea for the open ones also.
[Illustration: _Courtesy of the Bureau of Forestry_
An Open Forest in the Southwest]
It is a universal truth in nature that when a living thing has made the
best possible use of its environment, when the power within has been
sacrificed and united to the circumstances without, there is evolved a
dignity of character and a resulting expression of fitness and beauty.
This principle is exemplified in the very open forests of the
Southwest. In the mountain ranges of New Mexico, Arizona, and southern
California the forests have a hard struggle for existence. The winter
months at the higher elevations are severe; in the summer rain is
scarce, or entirely absent, and the sun beats down upon the dry earth
through the rarefied atmosphere with intense and desiccating power.
Naturally the forest trees are scattered, and on the steep, crumbly
slopes, dry and rocky, they hug the soil and cling to it with uncertain
footing. But in a sheltered ravine, or on the back of a rounded ridge,
or in a slight swale or hollow of the mountain—repeatedly, in fact,
among those rugged slopes—we meet with the dignity, the beauty, and the
peculiar expressiveness of the open coniferous forest, with its fine
definition and stereoscopic effects and the depth and perspective of
its long vistas.
On the crest of the mountain, where, from the valley below, the
early sunlight is first seen to break through, the trees, standing
apart, do not appear so much like a forest as like a congregation of
individuals, each with an identity of its own. Indeed, there among
the fierce gales of autumn and winter each shapes its own life in a
glorious independence, expressive in the knotty, twisted boles and
the picturesque crowns. But in summer the breezes strain through the
foliage with the lethargic sound of the ocean surge; or a halcyon
stillness reigns under a deep blue, cloudless sky.
[Illustration: A Storm-beaten Veteran]
Large old trees, these, with a history, that have braved life
together. They have seen companion veterans fall by their side, long
ago, into the deep, closely matted needle-mold. Thence arose out of the
moister hollows beneath the rotting trunk and boughs a new generation,
and the greater number of these have disappeared, too, for some reason
or another; only the strongest at last leading, to take the place of
the departed. How dignified, how simple are these old, stalwart trees
on the exposed ridge of the mountain.
Thus the coniferous forests, by virtue of their inherent qualities and
by means of the effects they borrow from their environment, possess a
tone that is as original and distinct as the character of the forests
belonging to the other class. It has already been intimated that the
two are not always strictly separable, but that individual trees, or
groups, or whole stretches of woods of the one will sometimes mingle
with the other, a fact that has probably been noticed by the most
casual observer. While the cone-bearers, however, not infrequently
descend into the lower altitudes, the leafy forest trees are not so
apt to be found at the high elevations at which many of the former
find their natural home. Where the cone-bearers are merely an addition
to the broadleaf woods they do not quite preserve their identity, but
rather impress us as being merely a part in the general adornment and
composition of the forest to which they belong. Where they remain
“pure,” however, as they do, for instance, in the pineries of the
coastal plain in the South, they never fail to express, in one or
another manner, their individuality as a forest; as by their uniformity
in size and color, by their odor, or by the scenic character of the
region of their occurrence.
All the preceding qualities of coniferous forests practically address
themselves in some manner to our physical senses. But, like the
broadleaf forests, these also possess a trait that rather addresses
itself to our mood or personal temperament. A characteristic air of
loneliness and wild seclusion belongs to them that contrasts strikingly
with the cheerful tone of the other class. It has been commonly
remarked that to some kinds of people the coniferous forests are
oppressive, at least on first acquaintance. Such natures feel the
weight of their gloom and lose their own buoyancy of spirit if they
stay too long within their confines; and it is noticeable that even the
inhabitants of these lonely retreats are not infrequently affected with
a reticence and a kind of melancholy that impresses the stranger almost
like a feeling of resignation. This peculiar temperament, however,
may be judged too hastily, and is understood better after a time. It
is probably true that the familiar and accessible woods of valley and
plain, where trails and wood-roads give us a feeling of security, are
more attractive and agreeable to most of us; yet there is a wonderful
charm about those dark forests of the mountains that have grown up in
undisturbed simplicity. After the first feeling of strangeness wears
off, as it soon will, they grow companionable and interesting. There
is a virtue in the sturdy forms that have grown to maturity without
aid or interference by man. We would not change them in that place for
the most beautiful trees in a park. Even the woodsman, whose days are
spent here in the hardest toil, feels a longing for the forest, his
home, when his short respite in the summer is over. So we, too, though
we may long for civilization after a few months in the forest, will
yet feel the desire to return to it after once thoroughly making its
acquaintance.
The attitude of the woodsman toward the forest is much like the
affection which the sailor has for the ocean. There is, indeed, a
similarity between their callings, and even the elements in which they
pass their lives are not so dissimilar in reality as may appear on the
surface. In his vast domain of evergreen trees that cover mountain and
valley, the woodsman, too, is shut out from the busier haunts of men.
He lives for months in his sequestered camp or cabin, where his bed is
often only a narrow bunk of boughs or straw. His food is simple and his
clothing rough and plain, to suit the conditions of his life. A large
part of the time he is out in snow and rain, tramping over rough rock
and soil. The camps that are scattered through the forest are to him
like islands, where he can turn aside for food and rest when on some
longer journey than usual.
Like the sailor he also has learned some of the secrets of nature. He
does not usually possess a compass, but he can tell its points by more
familiar signs: by the pendent tops of the hemlocks, which usually
bend toward the east, or by the mossy sides of the trees, which are
generally in the direction of the coolest and moistest quarter of the
heavens. In an extreme case he will even mount one of the tallest of
the trees to find his bearings in his oceanlike forest. If well judged,
the sighing of the wind in the boughs, I have been told, says much
about the coming weather; just as the sickly wash of the waves means
something to the sailor. Withal, both he and the woodsman are natural
and generally honest fellows, hard workers at perilous callings, and
less apt to speak than to commune with their own thoughts.
VI
THE ARTIFICIAL FORESTS OF EUROPE
To some of us, in this age of travel, the forests of Europe have become
as familiar as our own. As scenic objects they have their faults and
their excellences. While we appreciate their order and neatness, and
the beautiful effects that may arise out of the subordination of all
components of the forest to one main purpose, we Americans always miss
in them the freshness of nature.
These forests, as they now stand, are the result of a long-continued
application of the scientific principles of forestry, under special
conditions, to the European forests of old. Having referred repeatedly
to forestry itself, I now purpose, to the extent which a single chapter
will permit, to explain the sources of beauty, or the absence of it,
in these artificial forests. I shall thus place in contrast with our
own, which are just beginning to undergo a new process of development,
those of Europe, which have long been subjected to one in many respects
similar.
The importance of forests had long been understood by the people
of Europe. The relation which they held to civilized life, both in
a material way and otherwise, led, more than a century ago, to a
systematic and scientific treatment. It was realized that these
forests might be made perpetual, and so might furnish a constant
supply of useful material; that they economized and regulated the
flow of mountain streams, which are always of great importance to the
agricultural lands of subjacent regions; that they held in place the
loose soil of the slopes, thus averting avalanches and ruinous floods;
that they broke the force of the winds, tempered and purified the air,
and I may add, inspired man with better and happier thoughts.
For these reasons the people of Europe determined to guard their
forests well, and to aid nature, if possible, in becoming still more
useful to man. To this end they made a careful study of the life
history of the forest, and investigated the requirements of the trees
and their rates of growth under varying conditions of soil, heat,
light, and moisture. They also studied the numerous dangers to which
the forest is exposed, and invented means and established laws for its
protection. In short, they effected an ingenious adjustment between the
needs of the forest and the requirements of man, and in course of time
laid the foundations for a new system that was destined to be of great
importance to the economic interests of nations.
Many sciences were involved in the solution of these questions.
With the progress in means and methods the aims and objects of the
new profession gradually grew to be more and more clearly defined,
and knowledge and experience ultimately evolved the new science of
forestry. To the forester were finally intrusted the reëstablishment,
protection and preservation, the improvement, the regulation, the
management and administration, as well as the final cutting, of the
forest.
Such interference with the work of nature ultimately affected its
aspect. In the long life of the forest the changes were slow, but in
course of time the stamp of artificiality was impressed upon it, and
the imprint of nature’s own countenance was taken away. To an American,
if he has seen a little of our wildness, a great charm is wanting
in the artificial forests of Europe. The sun does not seem to set
naturally, but to hide behind roads and houses. It may be a lifelike
and harmonious scene, but it does not speak as deeply and expressively
as our wilder woods. The necessity of it is thrust upon you. It seems,
at times, as if the free will and perfect liberty of the air and rain,
of the wind, were wanting.
These forests are crossed by roads and are often divided into sections
of distinct age, kind, and appearance. Shrubs, if any, are few.
The deer’s track is known. The history of these trees is known and
recorded, and even their doom is fixed for a near or distant day.
There is, however, another side to this question. Through their very
design and fitness for an intended object the effects that are produced
are often decidedly pleasing. What these effects are will now appear
from an examination of the four different types or classes that
constitute at present the artificial forests of Europe.
The type of artificial forest that differs least from our own eastern
woods is one that has received the name of “selection forest.” It
constitutes a transition to the more complex forms. As in our own case,
trees of different kinds and of various sizes are intermingled in the
forest; but the European forest has more uniformity than ours, and
expresses a conceived purpose. This is readily explained by the fact
that from the beginning of the new method the trees were never removed
indiscriminately from the wooded area, but that a careful selection
was made from time to time of certain kinds, according to size and
usefulness. Useful material, however, was not the sole consideration.
The cutting was intended also to improve the conditions of growth for
the trees that remained standing, and to increase the proportion of the
species that were most useful or desirable. Finally, by opening up the
forest to a proper degree of sunlight, the way was prepared for the
germination of seeds that might fall from the old trees, in order to
provide early for a new generation in the forest.
[Illustration: A German “Selection Forest”]
It will be readily understood, I believe, that in course of time such
a forest would betray to the eye a certain gradation in the sizes of
the trees, and a fixed proportion in the number of those belonging to
one or another species. To this extent the selection forests differ
from our second-growth woods of the East; and yet, as compared to the
other three European types, their principal merit, esthetically, is
their naturalness. Though very different from our virgin forests, they
nevertheless possess the variety, cheerfulness, and interesting play of
light and shade that have been noted in an earlier chapter. In Germany
they are usually somewhat precise and trim in appearance; but in France
and elsewhere they look a little wilder, and are often enlivened with
holly or ivy, some sportive raspberry, or other gay shrub or vine. In
European countries where forestry has become thoroughly established
this type of forest has gradually disappeared, or has diminished
greatly in proportion, in order to make way for the other more highly
developed forms.
The young forest growth that goes by the name of “coppice” is linked
to the preceding kind by the association of time, for it is also one
of the old forms. The sound of the word brings to mind the copses of
England, those sportive little thickets that we may have read about,
or seen running along the streams, or straggling over the hills. But
the coppice of Germany or France is not quite the same as the copse
of England. It is a young forest of businesslike aspect, in which a
design for usefulness is unmistakable. The purpose in it is to reap an
approximately equal harvest each year, such as firewood from beeches,
hornbeams, or the like, withes from willows, charcoal from chestnut, or
tanbark from oak.
The means to accomplish the end are very simple. Only one kind of tree
composes the coppice, and the forest is graded in sections, each a year
older than the preceding. It is like a series of blocks, in which each
is a little taller than the last. The tallest falls by the ax, and the
next the following year, and so through the series till the cycle is
completed, when it may be resumed as before. The repetition is possible
because a tree is chosen for this kind of forest that will renew itself
by naturally sprouting from the stump that is always left after cutting.
The coppice woods must be seen to appreciate their charm. They have
a distinct flavor and a character that one easily remembers after a
first acquaintance. Not too far removed from the town or village,
yet often hidden in some secluded part of the hills, we find the
coppice a neat-looking place. The small wood that has been cut is
carefully stacked along the roadside in bundles or cords. Within one
of the sections we see the wood-cutters at work with their axes and
bill-hooks, and can fancy them trudging home contentedly at the close
of day. We find the rabbits taking the coppice for their own, sporting
about and wearing tracks in the thickets. A quiet place, and homelike
withal. We can look out above the thicket of young trees at the sky
and the older environing woods. The sounds come mellowed through the
distance to this open spot, as of the heavy ax in the large woods, or
the song of some woman in the far valley.
We have no coppice woods just like these in America. Our willow farms
are the only ones that have been subjected to a system like the one
described, and these are entirely too low to be called woods. They
are graded in size and age from one to four years, and separated into
blocks, just like the willow coppices of Germany. At a distance the
lithe stems with diminutive tufts of foliage at the top, standing in
straight rows, almost as dense as grain, have more the appearance of an
agricultural product than a tree farm.
The Christmas tree plantations, a kind of forest gardening, as it were,
remind us of the coppice in appearance, but cannot truly be called
such. As the conifers that furnish us with Christmas trees are not
capable of sprouting from the stump, the growers must depend upon
planting for their propagation, which is a principle directly opposed
to the idea of coppice.
Throughout the Eastern States there is an abundance of broadleaf
stump-sprout thickets, which have come by inheritance to the ground
from which their progenitors were removed by the wood-cutter’s ax.
While some of these approach nearly to the European coppices in
intention, they do not bear out the resemblance sufficiently for a
comparison. They lack their system and structure, though they depend
upon the same power of reproduction for their existence. Nevertheless,
they have their own charm. I remember one, at the edge of a tall
forest, in which the sprouts were composed of oak, beech, hickory,
tulip tree, dogwood, haw, and a few pine saplings, all of which formed
a dense thicket of young trees. In summer it was pleasant to thread
one’s way through this place, quite concealed by the straight young
growth, or to lie down there and listen for a whole morning to the
twitterings and songs of birds, shut in by a wealth of foliage.
There is another type of European forest known as “coppice under
standards.” This is no more than a coppice growing underneath a
selection forest somewhat different in aspect from the one already
described. In the present case the selection forest is opener, the
trees being fewer in number. Ample light is thus admitted for the
growth of the coppice beneath. The appearance of the whole is that of
an open forest into which the younger thickets have penetrated.
The esthetic effect of this combination may be described in very few
words. While the coppice loses much of its charm, the overspreading
forest gains something by this sacrifice. The former keeps the soil
in fair and fresh condition, thus insuring a healthy growth to the
large trees. It also shades the lower portions of their trunks, in
consequence of which many of them develop into clean specimens, with
strong, well-rounded stems, and graceful, wide-spreading crowns.
The last of the four types, the “high forest,” is the most artificial
and highly developed of the series. In its construction it is in some
respects like the coppice; for, as in that type, there is a uniformity
of size in the trees on restricted areas, and the species that compose
the entire forest are very limited in number. Coniferous high forests,
which are the most common, are often composed of only a single kind of
tree, and broadleaf forests of the same type rarely contain more than
two or three species. These forests, like the coppice, comprise a full
complement of sizes and ages, each confined to a separate section; but
the steps are not single years, as in the coppice, but periods of ten
or twenty years, or even more; so that the high forest, above all, is a
much taller and older one. The sections that compose it are not regular
in outline, except in certain forests on flats and levels, nor do they
necessarily lie side by side in the consecutive order of size and age.
Finally, the high forest also differs from the coppice in the manner of
its origin; for, while the former owes its existence to seedlings that
have grown up spontaneously, or been sown or planted, the coppice is a
young forest that has sprouted from the stumps of trees that have been
cut.
[Illustration: A “High Forest” of Spruce in Saxony]