Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 | Page 2

in general the principal
destroyers.
Immense forests still overspread a great part of Northern Russia,
through which it has been asserted that a squirrel might traverse
hundreds of miles, without touching the ground, by leaping from tree to
tree. Since the general adoption of railroad travelling, however, great
ravages have been made in these forests, and not many years will be
required to reduce them to fragments. In the South of Europe a great
part of the territory is barren of woods, and the climate has suffered
from this cause, which has diminished the bulk of the streams and
increased the severity of droughts. But Nature has established a partial
remedy for the evil arising from the imprudent destruction of forests, in
lofty and precipitous mountains, that serve not only to perpetuate
moisture for the supply of rain to the neighboring countries, but

contribute also to preserve the timber in their inaccessible ravines.
Were it not for this safeguard of mountains, the South of Europe would
ere this have become a desert, from the destruction of its forests, like
Sahara, whose barrenness was anciently produced by the same cause.
Most of the territory of North America is still comparatively a
wilderness; but in the United States the forests have been so
extensively invaded, that they seldom exhibit any distinct outlines, and
few of them possess the character of unique assemblages. They are but
scattered fragments of the original forest, through which the settlers
have made their irregular progress from east to west, diversifying it
with roads, farms, and villages. The recent clearings are palisaded by
tall trees, exhibiting a naked outline of skeleton timber, without any
attractions. It is in the old States only that we see anything like a
picturesque grouping of woods; and here, the absence of art and design,
in the formation and relative disposition of these groups, gives them a
peculiar interest to the lover of natural scenery. There is a charm,
therefore, in New-England landscape, existing nowhere else in equal
degree; but this is rapidly giving place to those artificial improvements
that are destined to ruin the face of the country, which owes its present
attractions to the spontaneous efforts of Nature, modified only by the
unartistic operations of a simple agriculture.
Travelling in a forest, though delightful as an occasional recreation, is,
when continued many hours in succession, unless one be engaged in
scientific researches, very monotonous and wearisome. Even the
productions of a forest are not so various as those of a tract in which all
the different conditions of wildness and culture are intermingled. A
view of an unbroken wilderness from an elevation is equally
monotonous. Wood must be blended with other forms of landscape,
with pasture and tillage, with roads, houses, and farms, to convey to the
mind the most agreeable sensations. The monotony of unbroken
forest-scenery is partially relieved in the autumn by the mixed variety
of tints belonging to the different trees; but this does not wholly subdue
the prevailing expression of dreariness and gloom.
Nothing can surpass the splendor of this autumnal pageantry, as beheld
in the Green Mountains of Vermont and Western Massachusetts, in the
early part of October. This region abounds in Sugar-Maples, which are
very beautifully tinted, and in a sufficient variety of other trees to

delight the eye with every specious hue. A remarkable appearance may
always be observed in Maples. Some trees of this kind are entirely
green, with the exception perhaps of a single bough, which is of a
bright crimson or scarlet. Sometimes the lower half of the foliage will
be green, while the upper part is entirely crimsoned, resembling a spire
of flame rising out of a mass of verdure. In other cases this order is
reversed, and the tree presents the appearance of a green spire rising out
of flame. We see no end to the variety of these apparently capricious
phenomena, which some have explained by supposing the colored
branches to be affected with partial disease that hastens their maturity:
but this can hardly be admitted as the true explanation, as such
appearances exist when no other symptoms of malady can be
discovered.
So much has been said and written of late in regard to the tints of
autumn leaves, that the writer of this cannot be expected to advance
anything new concerning them. Let me remark, however, that these
beautiful tintings are not due to the action of frost, which is, on the
contrary, highly prejudicial to them, as we may observe on several
different occasions. If, for example, a frost should occur in September
of sufficient intensity to cut down the tender annuals of our
gardens,--after this, when the tints begin to appear, the outer portion of
the foliage that was touched by the frost will exhibit a