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The volume offers a seasonal tour of New England woodlands, combining natural history, species descriptions, and landscape observation. It profiles many native trees and shrubs, noting forms, foliage, and identifying features, and organizes scenes by seasons and habitats. Interspersed essays examine trees' relations to soil, water, climate, electricity, birds, and insects, and discuss their roles in health, shade, and ornament. Practical and aesthetic considerations mingle with reflections on poetic and folkloric associations, while guidance on planting, forest rotation, and the varied expressions of trees rounds out a handbook for both the curious walker and the practical planter.
The Privet is a much handsomer shrub of an allied family. Its foliage is more delicate, both in hue and texture, not so thin, and almost evergreen. It has become extensively naturalized in our woods, and is distinguished by its clusters of white flowers in summer and its black, shining berries in autumn. It is abundant in all lands once tilled which have become wild, in the vicinity of our old towns, and was probably introduced at an early period for an ornamental hedge plant.