THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY. A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. VOL. VI. SEPTEMBER, I860. NO. XXXV. AMONG THE TREES. IN our studies of Trees, we cannot fail to be impressed with their importance not only to the beauty of landscape, but also in the economy of life ; and we are con- vinced that in no other part of the vege- table creation has Nature done so much to provide at once for the comfort, the sus- tenance, and the protection of her crea- tures. They afford the wild animals their shelter and their abode, and yield them the greater part of their subsistence. They are, indeed, so evidently indispensable to the wants of man and brute, that it would be idle to enlarge upon the subject, ex- cept in those details which are apt to be overlooked. In a state of Nature man makes direct use of their branches for weaving his tent, and he thatches it with their leaves. In their recesses he hunts the animals whose flesh and furs supply him with food and clothing, and from their wood he obtains the implements for cap- turing and subduing them. Man's earliest farinaceous food was likewise the product of trees ; for in his nomadic condition he makes his bread from the acorn and the chestnut : he must become a tiller of the soil, before he can obtain the products of the cereal herbs. The groves were like- wise the earliest temples for his worship, and their fruits his first offerings upon the divine altar. VOL. vi. 17 As man advances nearer to civilization, trees afford him the additional advantage which is derived from their timber. The first houses were constructed of wood, which enables him by its superior plastic nature, compared with stone, to progress more rapidly in his ideas of architecture. Wood facilitates his endeavors to instruct himself in art, by its adaptedness to a greater variety of purposes than any oth- er substance. It is, therefore, one of the principal instruments of civilization which man has derived from the material world. Though the most remarkable works of the architect are constructed of stone, it was wood that afforded man that early practice and experience which initiated him into the laws of mechanics and the principles of art, and carried him along gradually to perfection. But as man is nomadic before he is ag- ricultural, and a maker of tents and wig- wams before he builds houses and tem- ples, in like manner he is an architect and an idolater before he becomes a stu- dent of wisdom ; he is a sacrificer in tem- ples and a priest at their altars, before he is a teacher of philosophy or an interpret- er of Nature. After the attainment of science, a higher state of mental culture succeeds, causing the mind to see all Nature invested with beauty and fraught