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It argues, I think, a sweet and generous nature to have this strong relish for the beauties of vegetation, and this friendship for the hardy and glorious sons of the forest. There is a grandeur of thought connected with this part of rural economy. It is, if I may be allowed the figure, the heroic line of husbandry. It is worthy of liberal, and free-born, and aspiring men. He who plants an oak looks forward to future ages, and plants for posterity. Nothing can be less selfish than this. He can not expect to sit in its shade nor enjoy its shelter; but he exults in the idea that the acorn which he has buried in the earth shall grow up into a lofty pile, and shall keep on flourishing, and increasing, and benefiting mankind long after he shall have ceased to tread his paternal fields.-W. IRVING.

1 DES-CANT', discourse upon; make a varie-2 AM-A-TEUR', an unprofessional cultivator ty of remarks. of a study or art.

LESSON XIV. THE OAK FAMILY.
[EXOGENOUS or DICOTYLEDONOUS; Angiosperms; Apetalous.]1

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1. Quercus phel'los, Willow oak, xix. 12, (ap.), 60 f., My.-Jn., N. Am. 2. Q. vi'rens, Live oak, xix. 12, (ap.), 40 f., My., 3. Q. imbrica'ta, Shingle oak, xix. 12, (ap.), 40 f., My.-Jn., N. Am. 4. Q. bi'color, White swamp oak, xix. 12, (ap.), 60 f., My., N. Am. 5. Q. al'ba, White oak, xix. 12, (ap.), 80 f., My., N. Am. 6. Q. rubra, Red oak, xix. 12, (ap.), 70 f., My., N. Am. 7. Casta'nea ves'ca, Common chestnut, xix. 12, g., 60 f., My.Jn., N. Am. 8. Os'trya vulga'ris, Hop hornbeam, xix. 12., (ap.), 30 f., My.-Jn., Italy. (The American hornbeam has an acute bud, and more pointed leaves.) 9. Fa'gus ferrugin'ea, Red beech, xix. 12, (ap.), 50 f., My.-Jn., N. Am. 10. Pla'tanus occidentalis, button-wood, sycamore, or plane-tree, xix. 12, (ap.), 70 f., A.-My., N. Am.

1.

2.

THE monarch oak, the patriarch of the trees,
Shoots slowly up, and spreads by slow degrees;
Three centuries he grows, and three he stays
Supreme in state, and in three more decays.-DRYDEN.
"The oak, for grandeur, strength, and noble size,
Excels all trees that in the forest grow:

From acorn small, that trunk, those branches rise,
To which such signal benefits we owe.
Behold what shelter in its ample shade,

From noontide sun, or from the drenching rain;
And of its timber stanch, vast ships are made,

To sweep rich cargoes o'er the watery main."

3. The illustrious Oak family includes not only the trees usually called oak, but also the chestnut, beech, hornbeam or iron-wood, and hazel or filbert. It embraces two hundred and sixty-five species, mostly forest trees of great size. According to ancient legends, the fruit of the oak served as nourishment for the early race of mankind. This tree was said to have shaded the cradle of Jupiter after his birth on Mount Lycæus, in Arcadia, and, after that, to have been consecrated to him.

4. Among the Romans, the highest reward was the civic crown, made of oak leaves, given to him who had saved the life of a citizen in battle.

Most worthy of the oaken wreath

The ancients him esteemed

Who in a battle had from death

Some man of worth redeemed.-DRAYTON.

The person who received it was entitled to wear it at all public spectacles, and to sit next to the senators; and when he entered crowned with oak leaves, the audience rose up as a mark of respect.

5. By the early inhabitants of Britain, also, the oak was held in great veneration, and it was within its consecrated groves

that

"The Druid, erst his solemn rites performed,
And taught to distant realms his sacred lore."

Cowper, in his poem to the Yardley Oak, thus alludes to the
Druidical worship:

"It seems idolatry with some excuse',

When our forefather Druids in their oaks
Imagined sanctity'. The conscience, yet
Unpurified by an authentic act

Of amnesty', the meed of blood divine',

Loved not the light', but, gloomy, into gloom

Of thickest shades', like Adam after taste

Of fruit proscribed', as to a refuge fled\."

6. The white oak, red oak, and live oak are the most important species, the timber of the latter being the best for ship-building. The live oak grows in the Southern States, within twenty miles of the sea-coast, and may be seen as far

north as Old Point Comfort, in Virginia. Other species, as water, black, willow, and shingle oaks, abound in various sections of the country. It is a common sentiment that the more the oak is rocked by winds, the more firmly knit are its branches, and that the storm which scatters its leaves only causes its roots to strike the deeper into the earth.

The graceful foliage storms may reave,

The noble stem they can not grieve.-SCOTT.

It grew and it flourish'd for many an age,

And many a tempest wreak'd on it its rage;

But when its strong branches were bent with the blast,

It struck its roots deeper, and flourish'd more fast.-SOUTHEY.

In the following lines an anonymous writer has given to the subject a moral application.

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"Proud monarch of the forest'!
That once, a sapling bough,

Didst quail far more at evening's breath
Than at the tempest now',

Strange scenes have pass'd, long ages roll'd
Since first upon thy stem,

Then weak as osier twig, Spring set
Her leafy diadem'.

To thee but little recks it

What seasons come or go';

Thou lov'st to breathe the gale of spring

And bask in summer's glow;

But more to feel the wintry winds

Sweep by in awful mirth,

For well thou know'st each blast will fix

Thy roots more deep in earth.

Would that to me life's changes

Did thus with blessings come!

That mercies might, like gales of spring,

Cause some new grace to bloom'!
And that the storm which scattereth
Each earth-born hope abroad',
Might anchor those of holier birth
More firmly on my God!"

10. Oaks live to a great age. The famous Charter Oak of Hartford, Connecticut, which fell August 21st, 1856, must have been a goodly tree when William the Conqueror was planting the new forest in England. When the first settlers of the state were clearing the forests, the Indians begged that it might be spared. How appropriate to their entreaties seem the words of Morris:

"Woodman, forbear thy stroke!

Cut not its earth-bound ties;
Oh, spare that aged oak,

Now towering to the skies!"

11. "It has been the guide of our ancestors for centuries," said they," as to the time of planting our corn. When the leaves are the size of a mouse's ears, then is the time to put the seed into the ground." And it was well they did "let the old oak stand," for it afterward became the faithful guard

ian of the chartered rights of the infant colony; and so highly was it venerated, that, at sunset on the day of its fall, the bells of the city were tolled, and a band of music played funeral dirges over its fallen ruins.

12. The chestnut, also one of the Oak family, is, like the oak, remarkable for its long life and great size, but is best known for its excellent fruit. As a noble shade-tree it is unsurpassed, and as such has been immortalized in the affections of our people by a popular poem beginning,

Under a spreading chestnut-tree
The village smithy stands,
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;

And the muscles of his brawny arms

Are strong as iron bands.-LONGFELLOW.

This tree is not, however, the same as the well-known ornamental lawn-tree, the horse-chestnut, which belongs to another family.

13. The beech-"the spreading beech-tree"-also a member of the Oak family, is a tree of firm and hard wood, which is much used for making carpenters' tools. The botanical name of the tree, fagus, is supposed to be derived from a Greek word signifying to eat, indicating that its fruit served as food for man in ancient times. Our American Indians were so firmly persuaded that this tree was never struck by lightning, that, on the approach of a thunder-storm, they took refuge under its thick foliage with a full assurance of safety.

14. The bark of the beech is smooth, and of a silvery hue, and very well adapted to rude carving; and doubtless this is the chief reason of the poetic celebrity which this tree has attained. Virgil has given it immortal bloom in the opening of his first Eclogue:

"In beechen shades, you, Tityrus, stretched along,
Tune to your slender reed the sylvan song;'

and Shakspeare thus notices it in his comedy of "As You Like It:"

"Oh Rosalind! these trees shall be my books,
And in their barks my thoughts I'll character,
That every eye which in this forest looks

Shall see thy virtue witness'd every where."

15. The poet Campbell has appropriated a distinct poem to "The Beech-tree's Petition" the last few lines of which will close our notice of this tree of poetic celebrity:

"Thrice twenty summers I have stood

In bloomless, fruitless solitude,
Since childhood in my nestling bower

First spent its sweet and sportive hour,

Since youthful lovers in my shade

Their vows of truth and rapture paid,

And on my trunk's surviving frame
Carved many a long-forgotten name.
Oh, by the vows of gentle sound
First breathed upon this sacred ground,
By all that Love hath whisper'd here,
Or beauty heard with ravish'd ear-
As Love's own altar, honor me,

Spare, woodman, spare the beechen-tree!"

1 A-PĚT'-AL-OUS plants are those whose flowers have no petals, or corolla.

LESSON XV.—THE OAK AND THE NOBLEMAN.

AND, on the rugged mountain brow exposed,
Bearing the blast alone, the ancient oak

Stood, lifting his mighty arm, and still,

To courage in distress, exhorted loud.-POLLOK.

There is an affinity between all natures, animate and inanimate. The oak, in the pride and lustihood of its growth, seems to me to take its range with the lion and the eagle, and to assimilate, in the grandeur of its attributes, to heroic and intellectual man. With its lofty pillar rising straight and direct toward heaven, bearing up its leafy honors from the impurities of earth, and supporting them aloft in free air and glorious sunshine, it is an emblem of what a true nobleman should be a refuge for the weak, a shelter for the oppressed, a defense for the defenseless; warding off from the peltings of the storm, or the scorching rays of arbitrary power. He who is this is an ornament and a blessing to his native land. He who is otherwise abuses his eminent advantagesabuses the grandeur and prosperity which he has drawn from the bosom of his country. Should tempests arise, and he be laid prostrate by the storm, who would mourn over his fall? Should he be borne down by the oppressive hand of power, who would murmur at his fate? "WHY CUMBERETH HE THE GROUND?"-WASHINGTON IRVING.

LESSON XVI.—THE ELM, WILLOW, AND BIRCH FAMILIES.

1. THE numerous species of trees of the Elm, Willow, and Birch families, as well as those of the Oak, Chestnut, Beech, and many others of our large forest trees, are classed by most botanists as apetalous, because, while they have all the essential organs which constitute a flower, such as stamens, pistils, and seed vessels, they are destitute of petals, or corolla. Many of them have a colored calyx, but in some even the calyx itself is wanting.

2. The elms, of which sixty species have been described by botanists, are believed by many to have originated from only

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