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

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 proportion of Pines the perfection of this scenery is witnessed. Something is needful to relieve the eye as it wanders over such a profusion of brilliant colors.