crowded growth of the northern cypress, or white cedar. These evergreen swamps would constitute the darkest ground of the picture. The deep alluvial tracts would be known by the deciduous character of their woods and their lighter and brighter verdure, and the dry, sandy and diluvial plains and the gravelly hills and eminences by their white birches and tremulous poplars, their stunted pitch-pines and dwarfish junipers. For a century past the woods have been cleared mostly from the alluvial tracts; and the oaks, the hickories, the chestnuts, and other hard-wood trees, the primitive occupants of the rich and deep soils, have been succeeded in great measure by trees of softer wood, that originally grew on inferior land. The wooded aspect of the country cannot any longer be considered, as formerly, a good geological chart, except in some parts of Maine and the adjoining British Provinces.

One of the conditions most remarkable in a primitive forest is the universal dampness of the ground. The second growth of timber, especially if the surface were entirely cleared, stands upon a drier foundation. This greater dryness is caused by the absence of those vast accumulations of vegetable débris that rested on the ground before it was disturbed. A greater evaporation also takes place under the second growth, because the trees are of inferior size and stand more widely apart. Another character of a primitive forest is the crowded assemblage of trees and their undergrowth, causing great difficulty in traversing it. Innumerable straggling vines, many of them covered with thorns, like the green-brier, intercept our way. Immense trunks of trees, prostrated by hurricanes, lie in our path, and beds of moss of extreme thickness cover a great part of the surface, saturated with moisture. The trees are also covered with mosses, generated by the shade and dampness; and woody

vines, like the climbing fern, the poison ivy, and the ampelopsis, fastened upon their trunks and trailing from their branches, make the wood in many places like the interior of a grotto. Above all, the traveller would notice the absence of those pleasant wood-paths that intersect all our familiar woods, and would find his way only by observing those natural appearances that serve as a compass to the Indian and the forester.

In primitive woods there is but a small proportion of perfectly formed trees; and these occur only in such places as permit some individuals to stand in an isolated position, and spread out their arms to their full capacity. When rambling in a wood we take note of several conditions which are favorable to this full expansion of their forms. On the borders of a lake, a prairie, or an open moor, or of an extensive quarry that projects above the soil, the trees will extend their branches into the opening; but as they are crowded on their inner side, they are only half developed. This expansion, however, is on the side that is exposed to view; hence the incomparable beauty of a wood on the borders of a lake or pond, on the banks of a river as viewed from the water, and on the circumference of a densely wooded islet.

Fissures and cavities are frequent in large rocks not covered with soil, allowing solitary trees which have taken root in them to acquire their full proportions. In such places, and on eminences that rise suddenly above the forest level, with precipitous sides, overtopping the surrounding woods, we find individual trees possessing the character of standards, like those we see by roadsides and in open fields. But perfectly formed trees can only be produced in openings and on isolated elevations such as I have described; and it is evident that these favorable circumstances must be rare. The trees in a forest are like those human beings who from their infancy have been

confined in the workshops of a crowded manufacturing town, and who become closely assimilated and lose those marks of individual character by which they would be distinguished if they had been reared in a state of freedom and in the open country.

The primitive forest, in spite of its dampness, has always been subject to fires in dry seasons, which have sometimes extended over immense tracts of country. These fires were the dread of the early settlers, and countless lives have been destroyed by their flames often overwhelming entire villages. At the present time the causes of fire in the woods are very numerous; but before they were exposed to artificial sources of ignition it may have arisen from spontaneous combustion, caused by large accumulations of fermenting substances, or from lightning, or from the accidental friction of the trunks of half-prostrated trees crossing each other, and moved by a high wind. The forests in every part of the world have been subject to conflagrations; and there seems to be no other means that could be used by nature for removing old and worn-out forests, which contain more combustible materials than any young woods. The burned tracts in America are called barrens by the inhabitants; and as the vegetation on the surface is often entirely destroyed, the spontaneous renewal of it would display the gradual method of nature in restoring the forest. The successions of plants, from the beautiful crimson fireweed, through all the gradations of tender herbs, prickly bushes, and brambles, to shrubs and trees of inferior stature, until all, if the soil be deep and fertile, are supplanted by oaks, chestnuts, hickories, and other hardwood trees, are as regular and determinable as the courses of the planets or the orders of the seasons.

THE ASH.

It is interesting to note the changes that take place from one season to another in the comparative beauty of certain trees. The Ash, for example, during the early part of October, is one of the most beautiful trees of the forest, exceeded only by the maple in variety of tinting. In summer, too, but few trees surpass it in quality of foliage, disposed in flowing irregular masses, light and airy, but not thin, though allowing the branches to be traced through it, even to their extremities. It has a well-rounded head, neither so regular as to be formal, nor so broken as to detract from its peculiar grace. When standing with other trees in midsummer, in the border of a wood, or mingled with the standards by the roadside, the Ash would be sure to attract admiration. But no sooner have the leaves fallen from its branches than it takes rank below almost all other trees, presenting a stiff, blunt, and awkward spray, and an entire want of that elegance it affects at other seasons.

The Ash is a favorite in Europe, though deficient there in autumnal tints. It is a tree of the first magnitude, and has been styled in classical poetry the Venus of the forest, from the general beauty of its proportions and flowing robes. The English, however, complain of the Ash, on account of its tardy leafing in the spring and its premature denudation in the autumn. "Its leaf," says Gilpin, "is much tenderer than that of the oak, and sooner receives impression from the winds and frost. Instead of contributing its tint, therefore, in the wane of