"But there are fire-engines?"
"There may be very good ones now. In my time nothing could be more futile than the trumpery one which was carried on men's shoulders. Indeed, until the streets are much less rough, narrow, and steep, I do not see how one could be driven at any speed."
"Did the men who carried the engine run?"
"Yes, and at a good swinging pace too, their half-naked bodies streaming with perspiration, and (I should have thought) their labours quite doubled by yelling as they ran. Their cries are echoed by the formidable-looking band which follows, waving long poles armed with hooks, &c., for pulling down houses to stop the progress of the flames. On the heels of these figures follow mounted officials, whose dignity is in a fixed proportion to the extent of the calamity. If the fire is a very very extensive one, the Sultan himself has to be upon the spot."
"It must be very exciting," said Fred, in a tone of relish.
"You've told us lots about Constantinople now, Cousin Peregrine," said Maggie, who had the air of having heard quite enough on the subject; "now tell us about why you said Ponto never was in Constantinople. Don't the Turks keep dogs?"
"Not as we do, for pets and friends; and yet the dog population of Constantinople is more numerous and powerful, and infinitely more noisy, than I can easily describe to you."
"Whom do they belong to then?"
"They have no special masters or mistresses. They are more like troops of wolves than a collection of Pontos."
"But who gives them their dinners?"
"They live on offal and the offscourings of the city, and though the Turks freely throw all their refuse into their streets, there are so many dogs that they are all half-starved. They are very fierce, and have as a rule a great dislike to strangers. At night they roam about the streets, and are said to fall upon any one who does not carry a lantern."
"But does anybody carry a lantern—except the watchmen?"
"Everybody does. Coloured paper lanterns, like the Chinese ones, with a bit of candle inside. With one of these in one hand and a heavy stone or stick in the other, you may get safely through a night-walk among the howling dogs of Stamboul."
"What horrible beasts!"
"I think you would pity them if you were there. They are half starved, and have no friends."
"There isn't a home for lost and starving dogs in Constantinople then?"
"The whole city may be considered as the headquarters of starving dogs, but not of lost ones. That reminds me why I said Ponto had not lived there. If he had he would know his own grounds, and keep to them."
"But, Cousin Peregrine, I thought you said the Turkish dogs had no particular homes?"
"Every dog in Constantinople belongs to a particular Quarter of the town, which he knows, and to which he confines himself with marvellous sagacity. In the Quarter in which he was born, there he must live, and there (if he wishes to die peaceably) he must die. If he strays on any pretext into another Quarter, the dogs of the Quarter he has invaded will tear him to pieces, and dine upon his bones."
"How does he know where his own part of the town begins and ends?"
"I cannot tell you, Maggie. But I can tell you of my own knowledge that he does. Jack did, though we tried to deceive him over and over again."
"Who was Jack?"
"The handsomest dog I ever saw in Constantinople. The Turkish dogs are by no means beautiful as a rule, they are too much like jackals, and as they are apt to be maimed and covered with scars from fights with each other, they do not make much of what good looks they have. However, Jack was rather less wild and wolfish-looking than most of his friends. He was of a fine tawny yellow, and had an intelligent face, poor fellow. He belonged to our Quarter—in fact the cemetery was his home till he took to lying at our door."
"Then he was a Pera dog?"
"Yes, and I and the brother-officers who were living with me made friends with him. We gave him food and spoke kindly to him, and he laid aside his prejudices against foreigners, and laid his tawny limbs on our threshold. We became really attached to each other. He received the very British name of Jack, and seemed quite contented with it. He took walks with us. It was then that again and again we tried to deceive him about the limits of his Quarter, and get him into another one unawares. He never was misled. But later on, as he grew tame, less fearful of things in general, and more unwilling to quit us when we were out together, he sometimes strayed beyond his bounds, not because he was deceived as to his limits, but he ventured on the risk for our sakes. Even then, however, he would not walk in the public thoroughfares, he 'dodged' through gardens, empty courtyards and quiet by-places where he was not likely to meet the outraged dogs of the Quarter he was invading. The moment we were safe back 'in bounds' he came freely and happily to our side once more. I have often wondered, since I left Constantinople, how long Jack lived, and how he died."
"Oh, didn't you take him away?"
"I couldn't, my dear. And you must not think, Maggie, that if Turks do not pet dogs they are cruel to them. It is not the case. A Turk would never dream of petting a dog, but if he saw one looking hot and thirsty in the street he would be more likely to take trouble to get it a dish of water than many English people who feed their own particular pets on mutton-chops. Jack was not likely to be ill-treated after our departure, but I sometimes have a heart-sore suspicion that we may have raised dreams in his doggish heart never again to be realized. If he were at all like other dogs (and the more we knew of him the more companionable he became), he must have waited many a long hour in patient faithfulness at our deserted threshold. He must have felt his own importance as a dog with a name, in that wild and nameless tribe to which he belonged. He must have dreamed of his foreign friends on many a blazing summer's afternoon. Perhaps he stole cautiously into other Quarters to look for us. I hope he did not venture too far—Maggie—my dear Maggie! You are not fretting about poor Jack? I assure you that really the most probable thing is that our successors made friends with him."
"Do you really and truly think so, Cousin Peregrine?"
"On my word of honour I do, Maggie. You must remember that Jack was not a Stamboul dog. He belonged to Pera, where Europeans live, so there is a strong probability that his unusual tameness and beauty won other friends for him when we had gone."
"I hope somebody very nice lived in your house when you went away."
"I hope so, Maggie."
"Cousin Peregrine, do you think we could teach Ponto to know his own quarter?"
"I think you could, Fred. I once lived next door to a man who was very fond of his garden. It was a mere strip in front of his hut—for we were quartered in camp at this time—and not even a paling separated it from a similar strip in front of my quarters. My bit, I regret to say, was not like his in any respect but shape. I had a rather ragged bit of turf, and he had a glowing mass of flowers. The monotony of my grass-plat was only broken by the marrow-bones and beef-ribs which my dog first picked and then played with under my windows. I was as fond of him as my brother-officer was of his flowers. I am sorry to say that Dash had a fancy for the gayer garden, and for some time my good-tempered neighbour bore patiently with his inroads, and with a sigh buried the beef-bone that Dash had picked among the mignonette at the roots of a magnificent rose which he often alluded to as 'John Hopper,' and seemed to treat as a friend. Mr. Hopper certainly throve on Dash's bones, but unfortunately Dash took to applying them himself to the roots of plants for which I believe that bone manure is not recommended. When he made a hole two foot deep in the Nemophila bed, and laid a sheep's head by in it against a rainy day, I felt that something must be done. After the humblest apologies to my neighbour, I begged for a few days' grace. He could not have spoken more feelingly of the form, scent, and colour of his friend John Hopper than I ventured to do in favour of the intelligence of my friend Dash. In short I begged for a week's patience on his part, that I might teach Dash to know his own garden. If I failed to do so, I promised to put him on the chain, much as I dislike tying up dogs."
"How did you manage, Cousin?"
"Whenever Dash strayed into the next garden, I began to scold him in the plainest English, and covered him with reproaches, till he slunk gradually back to his own untidy grass-plat. When he touched his own grounds, I changed my tone at once, to approbation. At first this change simply brought him flying to my feet again, if I was standing with my friend in his garden. But after a plentiful application of, 'How dare you, Sir? Go back' (pointing), 'go back to your garden. If this gentleman catches you here again, he'll grind your bones to make John Hopper's bread. That's a good dog. No! Down! Stay where you are!'—Dash began to understand. It took many a wistful gaze of his brown eyes before he fully comprehended what I meant, but he learned it at last. He never put paw into Major E——'s garden without looking thoroughly ashamed of himself. He would lie on his own ragged lawn and wistfully watch me sitting and smoking among the roses; but when I returned to our own quarters he welcomed me with an extravagant delight which seemed to congratulate me on my escape from the enemy's country."
"Oh, Cousin Peregrine! We must try and teach Ponto to know his own garden."
"I strongly advise you to do so. Ponto is a gentleman of honour and intelligence, I feel convinced. I think he will learn his neighbourly duties, and if he does do so as well as Dash did—whatever you may think of Mr. Mackinnon—I think Mr. Mackinnon will soon cease to regard Ponto as—a nasty next-door neighbour."
THE PRINCES OF VEGETATION.
This fanciful and high-sounding title was given by the great Swedish botanist, Linnæus, to a race of plants which are in reality by no means distantly allied to a very humble family—the family of Rushes.
The great race of Palms puzzled the learned Swede. He did not know where to put them in his system; so he gave them an appendix all to themselves, and called them the Princes of Vegetation.
The appendix cannot have been a small one, for the Order of Palms is very large. About five hundred different species are known and named, but there are probably many more.
They are a very beautiful order of plants; indeed, the striking elegance of their forms has secured them a prominence in pictures, poetry, and proverbs, which makes them little less familiar to those who live in countries too cold for them to grow in, than to those whose home, like theirs, is in the tropics. The name Palm (Latin, Palma) is supposed to have been applied to them from a likeness in the growth of their branches to the outspread palm of the hand; and the fronds of some of the fan-palms are certainly not unlike the human hand, as commonly drawn by street-boys upon doors and walls.
So beautiful a tree, when it flourished in the symbol-loving East, was sure to be invested with poetical and emblematical significance. Conquerors were crowned with wreaths of palm, which is said to have been chosen as a symbol of victory, because of the elasticity with which it rises after the pressure of the heaviest weight—an explanation, perhaps, more appropriate to it as the emblem of spiritual triumphs—the Palm of Martyrdom and the Palms of the Blessed.
But as a religious symbol it is not confined to the Church triumphant. Not only is the "great multitude which no man can number" represented to us as "clothed in white robes, and palms in their hands"—the word "palmer" records the fact that he who returned from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land was known, not only by the cockle-shell on his gown, but by the staff of palm on which he leant. St. Gregory also alludes to the palm-tree as an accepted emblem of the life of the righteous, and adds that it may well be so, since it is rough and bare below, and expands above into greenness and beauty.
The palm here alluded to is evidently the date palm (Phœnix dactylifera). This is pre-eminently the palm-tree of the Bible, and was in ancient times abundant in the Holy Land, though, curiously enough, it is now comparatively rare. Jericho was known as "the city of palm-trees" in the time of Moses (Deut. xxxiv. 3). It is alluded to again in the times of the Judges (Judges i. 11; iii. 13), and it bore the same title in the days of Ahaz (2 Chron. xxviii. 15). Josephus speaks of it as still famous for its palm-groves in his day, but it is said that a few years ago only one tree remained, which is now gone.
It was under a palm that Deborah the prophetess sat when all Israel came up to her for judgment; and to an audience under the shadow of this tree, which bore her name, that she summoned Barak out of Kedesh-naphtali. Bethany means "the House of Dates," and the branches of palm which the crowd cut down to strew before our Lord as He rode into Jerusalem were no doubt of this particular species.
Women—as well as places—were often named after the Princes of Vegetation, whose graceful and stately forms approved them to lovers and poets as fit types of feminine beauty.
Usefulness, however, even more than ornament, is the marked characteristic of the tribe. "From this order (Palmæ)," says one writer, "are obtained wine, oil, wax, flour, sugar, salt, thread, utensils, weapons, habitations, and food"—a goodly list of the necessaries of life, to which one may add many smaller uses, such as that of "vegetable ivory" for a variety of purposes, and the materials for walking-sticks, canework, marine soap, &c., &c.
The Princes of Vegetation are to be found in all parts of the world where the climate is adapted to the tropical tastes of their Royal Highnesses.
They have come into our art, our literature, and our familiar knowledge from the East; but they abound in the tropics of the West, and some species are now common in South America whose original home was in India.
The cocoa-nut palm (Cocos nucifera) is an Indian and South Sea Islands Prince; but his sway extends now over all tropical countries. The cocoa-nut palm begins to bear fruit in from seven to eight years after planting, and it bears on for no less than seventy to eighty years.
Length of days, you see, as well as beauty and beneficence, mark this royal race which Linnæus placed alone!
Cocoa-nuts are useful in many ways. The milk is pleasant, and in hot and thirsty countries is no doubt often a great boon. The white flesh—a familiar school-boy dainty—is eaten raw and cooked. It produces oil, and is used in the manufacture of stearine candles. It is also used to make marine soap, which will lather in salt water. The wood of the palm is used for ornamental joinery, the leaves for thatch and basket-work, the fibre for cordage and cocoa-nut matting, and the husk for fuel and brushes.
Cocoa and chocolate come from another palm (Theobroma cacao), which is cultivated largely in South America and the West Indies.
Sago and tapioca are made from the starch yielded by several species of palm. The little round balls of sago are formed from a white powder (sago flour, as it is called), just as homœopathic pillules are formed from sugar. It is possible to see chemists make pills from boluses to globules, but the Malay Indians are said jealously to keep the process of "pearling" sago a trade secret. Tapioca is only another form of sago starch. Sago flour is now imported into England in considerable quantities. It is used for "dressing" calicoes.
Among those products of the palm which we import most liberally is "vegetable ivory."
Vegetable ivory is the kernel of the fruit of one of the most beautiful of palms (Phytelephas macrocarpa).
This Prince of Vegetation is a native of South America. "It is short-stemmed and procumbent, but has a magnificent crown of light green ostrich-feather-like leaves, which rise from thirty to forty feet high." The fruit is as big as a man's head. Two or three millions of the nuts are imported by us every year, and applied to all the purposes of use and ornament for which real ivory is available.
The Coquilla-nut palm (Attalea funifera), whose fruit is about the size of an ostrich-egg, also supplies a kind of vegetable ivory.
Our ideas of palm-trees are so much derived from the date palm of Judæa, that an erect and stately growth is probably inseparably connected in our minds with the Princes of Vegetation. But some of the most beautiful are short-stemmed and creeping; whilst others fling giant arms from tree to tree of the tropical forests, now drooping to the ground, and then climbing up again in very luxuriance of growth. Many of the rattan palms (Calamus) are of this character. They wind in and out, hanging in festoons from the branches, on which they lean in princely condescension, with stems upwards of a thousand feet in length.
There is something comical in having to add that these clinging rattan stems, which cannot support their own weight, have a proverbial fame, and are in great request for the manufacture of walking-sticks. They are also largely imported into Great Britain for canework.
Another very striking genus (Astrocaryum) is remarkable for being clothed in every part—stem, leaves, and spathe—with sharp spines, which are sometimes twelve inches long. Astrocaryum murumura is edible. The pulp of the fruit is said to be like that of a melon, and it has a musky odour. It is a native of tropical America, and abundant on the Amazon. Cattle wander about the forests in search of it, and pigs fatten on the nut, which they crunch with their teeth, though it is exceedingly hard.
The date palm yields a wine called toddy, or palm wine, and from the Princes of Vegetation is also distilled a strong spirit called arrack.
And speaking again of the Judæan palms, I must here say a word of those which we associate with Palm Sunday—the willow palms—for which we used to hunt when we were children.
It is hardly necessary to state that these willow branches, with their soft silvery catkins, the crown of the earliest spring nosegays which the hedges afford, are not even distantly related to the Princes of Vegetation, though we call them palms. They are called palms simply from having taken the place of real palm-branches in the ceremonies of the Sunday of our Lord's Entry into Jerusalem, where these do not grow.
A very old writer, speaking of the Jews strewing palm-branches before Christ, says: "And thus we take palm and flowers in procession as they did ... in the worship and mind of Him that was done on the cross, worshipping and welcoming Him with song into the Church, as the people did our Lord into the city of Jerusalem. It is called Palm Sunday for because the palm betokeneth victory; wherefore all Christian people should bear palm in procession, in token that He hath foughten with the fiend our enemy, and hath the victory of hym."
A curious old Scotch custom is recorded in Lanark, as "kept by the boys of the Grammar-school, beyond all memory in regard to date, on the Saturday before Palm Sunday. They then parade the streets with a palm, or its substitute, a large tree of the willow kind (Salix caprea), in blossom, ornamented with daffodils, mezereon, and box-tree. This day is called Palm Saturday, and the custom is certainly a popish relic of very ancient standing."
But to return to palms proper. Before taking leave of them, there is one more word to be said in their praise which may endear this noble race to eyes which will never be permitted to see the wonders of tropical forests.
As pot-plants they are not less remarkable for the picturesqueness of their forms, than for the patience with which they endure those vicissitudes of stuffiness and chill, dryness, dust, and gas, which prove fatal to so many inmates of the flower-stand or the window-sill. Pot-palms may be bought of any good nurseryman at prices varying from two or three shillings to two or three pounds. Latania borbonica and Phœnix reclinata are good and cheap. Sandy-peaty soil, with a little leaf-mould, is what they like, and this should be renewed (with a larger pot) every second year. Thus, with the most moderate care, and an occasional sponging, or a stand-out in a soft shower, the exiled Princes of Vegetation, whose shoots in their native forests would have been of giant luxuriance, will live for years, patiently adapting themselves by slow growth to the rooms which they adorn, easier of management than the next fern you dig up on your rambles, and, in the incomparable beauty of their forms, the perpetual delight of an artistic eye.
LITTLE WOODS.
By little woods are here meant—not woods of small extent, but—woods in which the trees never grow big, woods that are to grown-up woods as children to grown-up people, woods that seem made on purpose for children, and dwarfs, and dolls, and fairies.
These little woods have many names, varying with the trees of which they are composed, or the districts in which they are found. One of the best-known names is that of copse or coppice, and it brings with it remembrances of the fresh beauty of spring days, on which—sheltered by the light copse-wood from winds that are still keen—we have revelled in sunshine warm enough to persuade us that summer was come "for good," as we picked violets and primroses to the tolling of the cuckoo.
Things "in miniature" have a natural charm for little people, and most of my young readers have probably been familiar with favourite copses, or miniature pine-forests. Perhaps some of them would like to know why these little woods never grow into big ones, and something also of the history and uses of those trees of which little woods are composed.
They are not made of dwarf trees. There are little woods, as well as big woods, of oak, elm, ash, pine, willow, birch, beech, and larch. In some cases the little woods are composed of the growth which shoots up when the principal trunk of the tree has been cut down, but they are generally little merely because they are young, and are cut down for use before they have time to grow into forest-trees. The object of this little paper is to give some account of their growth and uses. It will be convenient to take them alphabetically, by their English names.
The Ash (Fraxinus excelsior and other varieties) is a particularly graceful and fine tree at its full growth. It is a native of Great Britain, and of many other parts of the world. It is long lived. The most profitable age for felling it as a forest-tree is from eighty to a hundred years. The flower comes out before the leaves, which are late, like those of the oak. The bunches of seed-vessels, or "ash-keys," as they are fancifully called, were pickled in salt and water and eaten in old times. The Greeks and Romans made their spears of ash-wood. The wood is not so durable as that of some other trees, but it is tough, and is thus employed for work subject to sudden strains. It is good for kitchen-tables, as it scours well and does not easily splinter.
In little woods, or ash-holts, or ash-coppices, the ash is very valuable. They are either cut over entirely at certain intervals, or divided into portions which are cut yearly in succession. At four or five years old the ash makes good walking-sticks, crates to pack glass and china in, hoops, basket handles, fences, and hurdles. Croquet-mallets are also made of ash. At twelve or fourteen it is strong enough for hop-poles. There are many old superstitions in connection with the ash, and there is a midland counties saying that if there are no keys on the ash, within a twelvemonth there will be no king.
There are several fine American varieties, and both in the States and in Canada the wood is used for purposes similar to ours.
The Alder (Alnus glutinosa, &c.) is never a very large tree. It is supposed to be in maturity when it is sixty years old. It will grow in wetter places than any other tree in Europe—even than the willow. Though the wood is soft, it is very durable in water. Virgil speaks of it as being used for boats. It is highly valued in Holland for piles, and it is said that the famous bridge of the Rialto at Venice is built on piles of alder-wood. Though invaluable for water-pipes, pump-barrels, foundations for bridges, &c., alder-wood is of little use on dry land unless it can be kept perfectly dry. Wooden vessels and sabots, however, are made of it.
Alders are chiefly grown in little woods. Planted by the side of rivers, too, their tough and creeping roots bind and support the banks. Alder-coppices are very valuable to the makers of—gunpowder! Every five or six years the little alders are cut down and burned to charcoal, and the charcoal of alder-wood is reckoned particularly good by gunpowder manufacturers.
The Aspen, or Trembling Poplar (Populus tremula), like the alder, is fond of damp situations. It has also a white soft wood, used by the turner and engraver, and for such small articles as clogs, butchers' trays, &c., &c.
The quivering of its leaves is a favourite topic with poets, and there is a curious old Highland superstition that the Cross of Christ was made of aspen-wood, and that thenceforward the tree could never rest.
In "little woods" it may be cut every seven or eight years for faggots, and at fifteen or twenty years old for poles.
The Beech (Fagus sylvatica). With this beautiful tree all our young readers must be familiar. There may be those whose minds are not quite clear about wych-elms and sycamores, but the appearance of the beech-tree is too strongly marked to allow of any confusion on the subject.
The beech is spoken of by Greek and Roman writers, and old writers on British agriculture count it among the four timber trees indigenous to England: the beech, the oak, the ash, and the elm.
It is said, however, not to be a native of Scotland or Ireland. It attains its full growth in from sixty to eighty years, but is believed to live to be as old as two hundred. The timber is not so valuable as that of the other three British trees, but it is used for a great variety of purposes. Like the alder, it will bear the action of water well, and has thus been used for piles, flood-gates, mill-wheels, &c. It is largely used by cabinet-makers for house furniture. It is employed also by carriage-makers and turners, and for various small articles, from rolling-pins to croquet-balls. The dried leaves are used in Switzerland to fill beds with, and very nice such beds must be! Long ago they were used for this purpose in England. Evelyn says that they remain sweet and elastic for seven or eight years, by which time a straw mattress would have become hard and musty. They have a pleasant restorative scent, something like that of green tea. When we think how many poor people lie on musty mattresses, or have none at all, whilst the beech-leaves lie in the woods and go very slowly to decay, we see one more of the many instances of people remaining uncomfortable when they need not be so, because of their ignorance. The fact that beech-leaves are very slow to rot makes them useful in the garden for mulching and protecting plants from frost.
In Scotland the beech-chips and branches are burned to smoke herrings, and pyroligneous acid (a form of which is probably known to any of our young readers who suffer from toothache as creosote!) is distilled from them. Mr. Loudon tells us that the word "book" comes from the German word buch, which, in the first instance, means a beech, and was applied to books because the old German bookbinders used beech-wood instead of paste-board for the sides of thick volumes. Beech-wood is especially good for fuel. Only the sycamore, the Scotch pine, and the ash give out more heat and light when they burn. Beech-nuts—or beech-mast, as it is called—are eaten by many animals. Pigs, deer, poultry, &c., are turned into beech-woods to fatten on the mast. Squirrels and dormice delight in it. In France it is used to make beech-oil. This oil is used both for cooking and burning, and for the latter purpose has the valuable property of having no nasty smell.
Of the beauty of the beech as a forest-tree—let artists rave! Its smooth and shapely bole does not tempt the sketcher's eye alone. To the lover and the school-boy (and, alas! to that inartistic animal the British holiday-maker) it offers an irresistible surface for cutting names and dates. Upon its branches and beneath its shadow grow many fungi, several of which are eatable. Truffles are found there; those underground dainties which dogs (and sometimes pigs!) are trained to grub up for our benefit. They discover the whereabouts of the truffle by scent, for there is no sign of it above ground. Nothing else will grow under beech-trees, except holly.
Scarcely less charming than the beech-forests are beech-hedges. They cut and thrive with cutting like yew-hedges.
"Little woods" of beech are common in Buckinghamshire. They are chiefly grown for the charcoal, which is valuable for gunpowder.
"Copper-Beeches"—red-leaved beech-trees, very beautiful for ornamental purposes—all come from one red-leaved beech, a sort of freak of nature, which was found about a century ago in a wood in Germany.
The Birch (Betula alba, &c.) is also a tree of very distinctive appearance. The silver-white bark, which peels so delightfully under childish fingers, is not less charming to the sketcher's eye, whether as a near study or as gleaming points of high light against the grey greens and misty purples of a Highland hillside. It is emphatically the tree of the Highlands of the North. It bends and breaks not under the wildest winds, it thrives on poor soil, and defies mist and cold. So varied are its uses that it has been said that the Scotch Highlander makes everything of birch, from houses to candles, and beds to ropes! The North American Indians and the Laplanders apply it almost as universally as the Chinese use paper. The wigwams or huts of the North American Indians are made of birch-bark laid over a framework of birch-poles or trunks, and their canoes or boats are cased in it. The Laplander makes his great-coat of it,—a circular poncho with a hole for his head,—as well as his houses and his boots and shoes. It will be easily believed that birch-bark was used in ancient times for writing on before the invention of paper.
Birch-wood makes good fuel. It is also used by cabinet-makers. Its uses in "little woods" are many. The charcoal is good for gunpowder, and it is that of which crayons are made. Birch-coppices are cut for brooms, hoops, &c., at five to six years old, and at ten to twelve for faggot-wood, poles, fencing, and bark for the tanners. Birch-spray (that is, the twigs and leaves) is used for smoking hams and herrings, and for brooms to sweep grass. It is also used to make birch-rods; but as we think very ill of the discipline of any household in which the children and the pets cannot be kept in order without being beaten, we hope our own young readers are only familiar with birch-rods in picture-books.
The (Sweet or Spanish) Chestnut (Castanca vesca) is grown in "little woods" for hop-poles, fence-wood, and hoops. The wood of the full-grown tree is also valuable.
Evelyn says, "A decoction of the rind of the tree tinctures hair of a golden colour, esteemed a beauty in some countries." It would be entertaining to know if this is the foundation of the "auricomous fluids" advertised by hair-dressers!
Amongst "little woods" the dearest of all to the school-boy must surely be the hazel-copse! The Hazel (Corylus avellana) is never a large tree. It is, however, long lived, and of luxuriant growth. When cut it "stoles" or throws up shoots very freely, and when treated so will live a hundred years. With a single stem, Mr. Loudon assures us, it would live much longer. Filbert-hazels are a variety with longer nuts. Hazels are cultivated not only for the nuts, but for corf-rods,[1] hoops, fencing, &c., and hazel-charcoal, like beech-charcoal, is used for crayons. Like many other plants, the hazel has two kinds of flowers, which come out before the leaves. The long pale catkins appear first, and a little later tiny crimson flowers come where the nuts are afterwards to be.
Many old superstitions are connected with the hazel. Hazel-rods were used to "divine" for water and minerals by professors of an art which received the crack-jaw title of Rhabdomancy. Having tried our own hand at Rhabdomancy, we are able to say that the freaks of the divining-rod in sensitive fingers are sometimes as curious as those of a table among table-turners; and are probably susceptible of similar explanations.
The Larch (Larix Europæa, &c.). Though traceable in England for two hundred years, it is within this century that the larch has been extensively cultivated for profit. The exact date of its introduction from the mountain ranges of some other part of Europe is not known, but there is a popular tradition that it was first brought to Scotland with some orange-trees from Italy, and having begun to wither under hot-house treatment, was thrown outside, where it took root and throve thereafter. The wood of full-grown larch-trees is very valuable. To John, Duke of Athol, Scotland is indebted for the introduction of larch plantations on an enormous scale. He is said to have planted 6500 acres of mountain-ground with these valuable trees, which not only bring in heavy returns as timber, but so enrich the ground on which they grow, by the decayed spicula or spines which fall from them, as to increase its value in the course of some years eight or tenfold. The Duke was buried in a coffin made of larch-wood! This sounds as if the merits of the larch-tree had been indeed a hobby with him, but when one comes to enumerate them one does not wonder that a man should feel his life very usefully devoted to establishing so valuable a tree in his native country, and that the pains and pride it brought him should have awakened sentiment enough to make him desire to make his last cradle from his favourite tree.
Larch-wood is light, strong, and durable. It is used for beams and for ship-building, for railroad-sleepers and mill-axles, for water-pipes, and for panels for pictures. Evelyn says that Raphael, the great painter, painted many of his pictures on larch-wood. It will stand in heat and wet, under water and above ground. It yields good turpentine, but trees that have been tapped to procure this are of no use afterwards for building purposes. The larch is said not to make good masts for ships, but its durability in all varieties of temperature and changes of weather make it valuable for vine-props. When made of larch-poles these are never taken up as hop-poles are. Year after year the vines climb them and fade at their feet, and they are said to have outlasted at least one generation of vine-growers.
In "little woods" the larches are planted very close, so that they may "spindle up" and become tall before they grow thick. They are then used for hop-poles and props of various kinds.
The Oak (Quercus robur, &c.) is pre-eminently a British tree. Of its beauty, size, the venerable age it will attain, and its historical associations, we have no space to speak here, and our young readers are probably not ignorant on the subject.
The durability of its wood is proverbial. The bark is also of great value, and though the slow growth of the oak in its earlier years postpones profit to the planter, it does so little harm to other wood grown with it (being in this respect very different from the beech), that profitable coppice-wood and other trees may be grown in the same plantation.
The age at which the oak should be felled for ship-timber, &c., depends on many circumstances, and is fixed by different authorities at from eighty to a hundred and fifty years.
Oaks are said to be more liable than other trees to be struck by lightning.
Oak-coppices or "little woods" are cut over at from twelve to thirty years old. The bark is valuable as well as the wood.
The Pine (Pinus sylvestris, &c.), like the larch, will flourish on poor soils. It is valuable as a protection for other trees. The varieties and variations of this tree are very numerous.
It is a very valuable timber-tree, the wood being loosely known as "deal"; but "deals" are, properly speaking, planks of pine-wood of a certain thickness, "boards" being the technical name for a thicker kind. Pine trunks are used for the masts of ships. "In the north of Russia and in Lapland the outer bark is used, like that of the birch, for covering huts, for lining them inside, and as a substitute for cork for floating the nets of fishermen; and the inner bark is woven into mats like those made from the lime-tree. Ropes are also made from the bark, which are said to be very strong and elastic, and are generally used by the fishermen."
In the north of Europe great quantities of tar are procured from the Scotch pine. Torches are made from the roots and trunk.
Varieties of the pine are grown in "little woods" for hop-poles.
Pinus sylvestris (the "Scotch Pine"), though a native of Scotland, has only been planted and cultivated in Great Britain for about a century.
On the subject of "thinning and pruning" in plantations planters—like doctors—differ. An amusing story was sent to Mr. Loudon by the Duke of Bedford, in reference to his grandfather, who was an advocate for vigorous thinning in the pine plantations.
"The Duke perceived that the plantation required thinning, in order to admit a free circulation of air, and give health and vigour to the young trees. He accordingly gave instructions to his gardener, and directed him as to the mode and extent of the thinning required. The gardener paused and hesitated, and at length said: 'Your Grace must pardon me if I humbly remonstrate against your orders, but I cannot possibly do what you desire; it would at once destroy the young plantation; and, moreover, it would be seriously injurious to my reputation as a planter.' My grandfather, who was of an impetuous and decided character, but always just, instantly replied, 'Do as I desire you, and I will take care of your reputation.' The plantation was accordingly thinned according to the instructions of the Duke, who caused a board to be fixed in the plantation, facing the wood, on which was inscribed, 'This plantation has been thinned by John, Duke of Bedford, contrary to the advice and opinion of his gardener.'"
The Willow (Salix caprea, &c.). The species of willow are so numerous that we shall not attempt to give a list of them.
Willow-wood wears well in water, and has been used in shipbuilding and carpentery, and especially for small ware, cricket-bats and toys. Full-grown willows of all kinds are picturesque and very graceful trees. The growth of the tree kinds when young is very rapid.
Willows are largely cultivated in "little woods" for basket-making, hoops, &c. Shoots of the Salix caprea of only a year's growth are large enough to be valuable for wicker-work. It appears to be held by cultivators that the poorer the soil in which they are grown the oftener these willows should be cut over. "In a good soil a coppice of this species will produce the greatest return in poles, hoops, and rods every five, six, seven, or eight years; and in middling soil, where it is grown chiefly for faggot-wood, it will produce the greatest return every three, four, or five years."
Horses and cattle are fed on the leaves of the willow in some parts of France.
Willows are often "pollarded." That is, their tops are cut off, which makes a large crop of young shoots spring out, giving a shock-headed effect which in gnarled old pollards by river-banks is picturesque enough.
The "little woods" of willow on the river Thames and the Cam are well known. They are small islands planted entirely with willows, and are called osier-holts.
Osier-beds of all kinds are very attractive "little woods." One always fancies one ought to be able to make something of the long pliable "sally-withys"—as the Wiltshire folk call willow switches. Indeed, as a matter of fact, the making of rough garden-baskets is a very simple art, especially on the Scotch and German system. Let any ingenious little prowler in an osier-bed get two thickish willow-rods and fasten them at the ends with a bit of wire, so as to make two hoops. These hoops are then to intersect each other half-way up, one being perpendicular, to form the handle and the bottom of the basket, the other being placed horizontally, to form the rim. More wire will be needed to fix them in their positions. Much finer willow-wands are used to wattle, or weave, the basket-work; ribs of split osiers are added, and the wattling goes in and out among them, and at once secures them and rests upon them.
This account is not likely to be enough to teach the most intelligent of our readers! But one fancies that a rough sort of basket-making might almost be devised out of one's own head, especially if he had been taught (as we were, by a favourite nursemaid) to plait rushes.