Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 | Page 3

sullied and rusty
hue. The effects of these early frosts are seldom apparent while the
leaves are green, except on close inspection; for a very intense frost is
required to sear and roll up the leaves. Early autumnal frosts seldom do
more than to injure their capacity to receive a fine tint when they
become mature.
The next occasion that renders the injurious effects of frost apparent is
later in the season, after the tints are very generally developed. Every
severe frost that happens at this period impairs their lustre, as we may
perceive on any day succeeding a frosty night, when the woods, which
were previously in their gayest splendor, will be faded to a duller and
more uniform shade,--as if the whole mass had been dipped into a
brownish dye, leaving the peculiar tints of each species dimly
conspicuous through this shading. The most brilliant and unsullied hues
are displayed in a cool, but not frosty autumn, succeeding a moderate
summer. Very warm weather in autumn hastens the coloring process,

and renders the hues proportionally transient. I have known Maple
woods, early in October, to be completely embrowned and stripped of
their leaves by two days of summer heat. Cool days and nights,
unattended with frost, are the favorable conditions for producing and
preserving the beauty of autumnal wood-scenery.
The effects of heat and frost are not so apparent in Oak woods, which
have a more coriaceous and persistent foliage than other deciduous
trees: but Oaks do not attain the perfection of their beauty, until the Ash,
the Maple, and the Tupelo--the glory of the first period of
autumn--have shed a great portion of their leaves. The last-named trees
are in their splendor during a period of about three weeks after the
middle of September, varying with the character of the season.
Oaks are not generally tinted until October, and are brightest near the
third week of this month, preserving their lustre, in great measure, until
the hard frosts of November destroy the leaves. The colors of the
different Oaks are neither so brilliant nor so variegated as those of
Maples; but they are more enduring, and serve more than those of any
other woods to give character to our autumnal landscapes.
It would be difficult to convey to the mind of a person who had never
witnessed this brilliant, but solemn pageantry of the dying year, a clear
idea of its magnificence. Nothing else in Nature will compare with it:
for, though flowers are more beautiful than tinted leaves, no
assemblage of flowers, or of flowering trees and shrubs, can produce
such a deeply affecting scene of beauty as the autumn woods. If we
would behold them In their greatest brilliancy and variety, we must
journey during the first period of the Fall of the Leaf in those parts of
the country where the Maple, the Ash, and the Tupelo are the
prevailing timber. If we stand, at this time, on a moderate elevation
affording a view of a wooded swamp rising into upland and melting
imperceptibly into mountain landscape, we obtain a fair sight of the
different assemblages of species, as distinguished by their tints. The
Oaks will be marked, at this early period, chiefly by their unaltered
verdure. In the lowland the scarlet and crimson hues of the Maple and
the Tupelo predominate, mingled with a superb variety of colors from
the shrubbery, whose splendor is always the greatest on the borders of
ponds and water-courses, and frequently surpasses that of the trees. As
the plain rises into the hill-side, the Ash-trees may be distinguished by

their peculiar shades of salmon, mulberry, and purple, and the
Hickories by their invariable yellows. The Elm, the Lime, and the
Buttonwood are always blemished and rusty: they add no brilliancy to
the spectacle, serving only to sober and relieve other parts of the
scenery.
When the second period of the Fall of the Leaf has arrived, the woods
that were first tinted have mostly become leafless. The grouping of
different species is, therefore, very apparent at this time,--some
assemblages presenting the denuded appearance of winter, some
remaining still green, while the Oaks are the principal attraction, with
an intermixture of a few other species, whose foliage has been
protected and the development of their hues retarded by some
peculiarity of situation. Green rows of Willows may also be seen by
road-sides in damp places, and irregular groups of them near the
water-courses. The foreign trees--seldom found in woods--are still
unchanged, as we may observe wherever there is a row of European
Elms, Weeping Willows, or a hedge-row of Privet.
One might suppose that a Pine wood must look particularly sombre in
this grand spectacle of beauty; but it cannot be denied that in those
regions where there is a considerable