Getting Acquainted with the Trees

Flowers of the pin-oak

This raggedness is easily cared for, for the tree requires-and few trees do-no "trimming" of its outer branches. The interior twigs that the rapid growth of the tree has deprived of air and light can be quickly and easily removed. In Washington, where street-tree planting has been and is intelligently managed under central authority, the avenues of pin-oaks are a splendid feature of the great boulevards which are serving already as a model to the whole country. Let us plant oaks, and relieve the monotony of too many maples, poplars and horse-chestnuts along our city and village highways.

I like, too, to see the smooth little acorns of the pin-oak before the leaves drop; they seem so finished and altogether pleasing, and with the leaves make a classical decorative motive worth more attention from designers.

While I am innocent of either ability or intent to write botanically of the great oak family, I ought perhaps to transcribe the information that the flowers we see-if we look just at the right time in the spring-are known as "staminate catkins,"-which, being interpreted, means that there are also pistillate flowers, much less conspicuous, but exceedingly necessary if acorns are to result; and also the fact that the familiar "pussy-willow" of our acquaintance is the same form of bloom-the catkin, or ament. I ought to say, too, that some of the oaks perfect acorns from blossoms in one year, while others must grow through two seasons before they are mature. Botanically, the oak family is nearly a world family, and we Americans, though possessed of many species, have no monopoly of it. Indeed, if I may dare to refer the reader to that great storehouse of words, the Encyclopædia Britannica, I think he will find that the oak is there very British, and that the English oak, surely a magnificent tree in England anyway, is patriotically glorified to the writer.

But we want to talk of some of our own oaks. The one thoroughly characteristic is surely the noble white oak, a tree most admirable in every way, and most widely distributed over the Northern States. Its majestic form, as it towers high above the ordinary works of man, conveys the repose of conscious strength to the beholder. There is a great oak in Connecticut to which I make pilgrimages, and from which I always get a message of rest and peace. There it stands, strong, full-powered, minding little the most furious storms, a benediction to every one who will but lift his eyes. There it has stood in full majesty for years unknown, for it was a great oak, so run the title-deeds, way back in 1636, when first the white man began to own land in the Connecticut Valley. At first sight it seems not large, for its perfect symmetry conceals its great size; but its impression grows as one looks at it, until it seems to fill the whole landscape. I have sat under it in spring, when yet its leafy canopy was incomplete; I have looked into its green depths in midsummer, when its grateful shadow refreshed the highway; I have seen the sun set in redness beyond its bare limbs, the snowy countryside emphasizing its noble lines; I have tried to fathom the mystery in its sturdy heart overhead when the full moon rode in the sky; and always that "great oak of Glastonbury" has soothed and cheered and rested, and taken me nearer the Giver of all such good to restless humanity.

Do I wonder at my friend who has built his home where he may look always at this white oak, or that he raged in anger when a crabbed neighbor ruthlessly cut down a superb tree of the same kind that was on his property line, in order that he might run his barbed-wire fence straight? No; I agree with him that this tree-murderer has probably a barbed-wire heart, and we expect that his future existence will be treeless, at least!

Sometimes this same white oak adapts itself to the bank of a stream, though its true character develops best in the drier ground. Its strength has been its bane, for the value of its timber has caused many a great isolated specimen to be cut down. It is fine to know that some States-Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island also, I think-have given to trees along highways, and in situations where they are part of the highway landscape, the protection of a wise law. Under this law each town appoints a tree-warden, serving without pay (and therefore with love), who may seal to the town by his label such trees as are truly the common possession, regardless of whose land they happen to be on. If the owner desires to cut down a tree thus designated, he must first obtain permission, after stating satisfactory reasons, of the annual town-meeting, and this is not so easy as to make cutting very frequent. The whole country should have such a law, and I should enjoy its application right here in Pennsylvania, where oaks of a hundred years have been cut down to make room for a whisky sign, and where a superb pin-oak that I passed today is devoted to an ignominious use. If I may venture to become hortatory, let me say that the responsibility for the preservation of the all-too-few remaining great primeval trees, and of their often notable progeny, in our Eastern States, rests with those who care for trees, not alone with those who ought to care. To talk about the greatness and beauty of a fine oak or maple or tulip, to call attention to its shade value, and to appeal to the cupidity of the ground owner by estimating how much less his property will be worth when the trees are gone or have been mishandled, will aid to create the necessary public sentiment. And to provide wise laws, as may be often done with proper attention, is the plain duty and the high privilege of the tree-loving citizen. The trees are defenseless, and they are often unreplaceable; if you love them protect them as you would your children.

The white-oak leaf is the most familiar and characteristic, perhaps, of the family; but other species, close to the white oak in habit, show foliage of a very different appearance. The swamp white oak, for instance, is a noble tree, and in winter particularly its irregular branches give it an especial expression of rugged strength as it grows along a brookside; but its leaves smooth up on the edges, giving only a hint of the deep serrations that typify its upland brother. Deeply green above are these leaves and softly white below, and in late summer there appears, here and there, on a stout stem, a most attractive acorn of large size. Its curious cup gives a hint, or more than a hint, as to the special designating character of another oak, the mossy-cup or bur. This latter species is beautiful in its habit, rich in its foliage, and the fringed or mossed acorns are of a remarkable size.

Of all the oaks, the sturdy but not lofty post-oak spreads the richest display of foliage. Its peculiar habit leads to the even placing of its violoncello-shaped leaves, and its generous crop of acorns gives added distinction in late summer. It is fine in the forest, and a notable ornament anywhere.

It has been said that a proper penance for an offending botanist would be a compulsory separation and description of the involved and complicated goldenrod family; and I would suggest that a second edition of the same penance might be a requirement to name off-hand the first dozen oak trees the same poor botanist might meet. So much do the foliage, the bark, and the habit of growth vary, and so considerable is the difference between individuals of the same species, that the wisest expert is likely to be the most conservative. An unbotanical observer, who comes at the family just because he loves trees in general, and is poking his eyes and his camera into unusual places, doesn't make close determinations; he tells what he thinks he sees, and leaves exact work to the scientists.

There are some oaks, however, that have borrowed the foliage of other trees so cunningly that one at first scouts the possibility of the Quercus parentage, until he sees an undeniable acorn thrusting itself forward. Then he is sure that what seemed a rather peculiarly shaped chestnut tree, with somewhat stumpy foliage, is none other than the chestnut-oak. A fine tree it is, too, this same chestnut-oak, with its masquerading foliage of deep green, its upright and substantial habit, its rather long and aristocratic-looking acorns. The authorities tell that its wood, too, is brownish and valuable; but we tree-lovers are not enthusiastic over mere timber values, because that means the killing of the trees.

The willow-oak will not deceive, because its habit is so oak-like and so willow-less; but its foliage is surely borrowed from its graceful and more rapidly growing neighbor. Not so large, by any means, as the white oak or the chestnut-oak, it has somewhat rough and reddish bark, and its acorns are perfected in the second year of their growth, close to the twigs, in the way of the pin-oak. The general aspect of the tree is upright, rather than spreading, and it partakes thus of the maple character in its landscape effect. The willow-oak is one of the species I would, if I were writing a tree-planting article, heartily commend to those who wish to add adornment to the countryside that shall be permanent and satisfactory. Just a hint here: nursery-grown oaks, now obtainable from any modern establishment, have usually been frequently moved or transplanted, as the trade term goes, and this means that they have established a somewhat self-contained root system, which will give them far greater vigor and cause them to take hold sooner when finally placed in a situation where they are to be...