Read Ebook: A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies Or a faithful NARRATIVE OF THE Horrid and Unexampled Massacres Butcheries and all manner of Cruelties that Hell and Malice could invent committed by the Popish Spanish Party on the inhabitants of West-India by Casas Bartolom De Las

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The Sycamore, or Great Maple, or Mock Plane

The Oriental Plane

The White Poplar or Abele Tree

The Aspen

The White Willow

The Goat Willow or Sallow

The Scotch Pine or Scotch Fir

The Yew

The Juniper

PLATE XX

The Larch

The Spruce Fir

The Silver Fir

The Holly

The Wild Cherry or Gean

The Whitebeam

The Rowan or Mountain Ash

The Hawthorn

The Box

The Walnut

PLATE XXX

The Sweet Chestnut or Spanish Chestnut

The Horse Chestnut

The Cedar of Lebanon

TREES

PLATE I

THE OAK

Of all our forest trees the Oak is undoubtedly the king. It is our most important tree, the monarch of our woods, full of noble dignity and grandeur in the summer sunshine, strong to endure the buffeting of the wintry gales. It lives to the great age of seven hundred years or more, and is a true father of the forest. We read of the Oak tree in the story books of long ago. There are many Oak trees mentioned in the Bible. In Greece the Oak was believed to be the first tree that God created, and there grew a grove of sacred Oaks which were said to utter prophecies. The wood used for the building of the good ship Argo was cut from this grove, and in times of danger the planks of the ship spoke in warning voices to the sailors.

In Rome a crown of Oak leaves was given to him who should save the life of a citizen, and in this country, in the days of the Druids, there were many strange customs connected with the Oak and its beautiful guest the mistletoe. The burning of the Yule log of Oak is an ancient custom which we trace to Druid times. It was lit by the priests from the sacred altar, then the fires in all the houses were put out, and the people relit them with torches kindled at the sacred log. Even now in remote parts of Yorkshire and Devonshire the Yule log is brought in at Christmas-time and half burned, then it is taken off the fire and carefully laid aside till the following year.

I think you will have no difficulty in recognising an Oak tree at any time of the year. Look at its trunk in winter: how dark and rough it is; how wide and spreading at the bottom to give its many roots a broad grip of the earth into which they pierce deeply. Then as the stem rises it becomes narrower, as if the tree had a waist, for it broadens again as it reaches a height where the branches divide from the main trunk. And what huge branches these are--great rough, dark arms with many crooked knots or elbows, which shipbuilders prize for their trade. These Oak-tree arms are so large and heavy that the tree would need to be well rooted in the ground to stand firm when the gale is tossing its branches as if they were willow rods.

The Oak tree does not grow to a great height. It is a broad, sturdy tree, and it grows very slowly, so slowly that after it is grown up it rarely increases more than an inch in a year, and sometimes not even that. But just because the Oak tree lives so leisurely, it outlasts all its companions in the forest except, perhaps, the yew tree, and its beautiful hard, close-grained wood is the most prized of all our timber.

In the end of April or early in May, the Oak leaves appear; very soft and tender they are too at first, and of a pale reddish green colour. But soon they darken in the sunshine and become a dark glossy green. Each leaf is feather-shaped and has a stalk. The margin is deeply waved into blunt lobes or fingers, and there is a strongly-marked vein up the centre of the leaf, with slender veins running from it to the edge.

In autumn these leaves change colour: they become a pale brown, and will hang for weeks rustling in the branches till the young buds which are to appear next year begin to form and so push the old leaves off. If a shrivelling frost or a blighting insect destroys all the young Oak leaves, as sometimes happens, then the sturdy tree will reclothe itself in a new dress of leaves, which neither the Beech, nor the Chestnut, nor the Maple, could do. It shows what a great deal of life there is in the stout tree.

The flowers of the Oak arrive about the same time as the leaves, and they grow in catkins which are of two kinds. You will find a slender hanging catkin on which grow small bunches of yellow-headed stamens . Among the stamens you can see six or eight narrow sepals, but these stamens have no scales to protect them as the Hazel and Birch catkins have. On the same branch grows a stouter, upright catkin, and on it are one or maybe two or three tiny cups , made of soft green leaves called bracts, and in the centre of this cup sits the seed-vessel, crowned with three blunt points. As the summer advances this seed-vessel grows larger and fatter and becomes a fruit called an acorn, which is a pale yellow colour at first, and later is a dark olive brown. The soft leafy cup hardens till it is firm as wood, and in it the acorn sits fast till it is ripe. It then falls from the cup and is greedily eaten by the squirrels and dormice, as it was in the olden times by the pigs. From those acorns that are left lying on the ground all winter, under the withered leaves, will grow the tiny shoots of a new tree when the spring sunshine comes again.

The Oak tree is the most hospitable of trees: it is said that eleven hundred insects make their home in its kindly shelter. There are five kinds of houses, which are called galls, built by insects, and you can easily recognise these, and must look for them on the Oak tree. Sometimes on the hanging stamen catkins you will find little balls like currants with the catkin stem running through the centre. These are the homes of a tiny grub which is living inside the currant ball, and which will eat its way out as soon as it is ready to unfold its wings and fly.

Often at the end of an Oak twig you find a soft, spongy ball which is called an Oak apple. It is pinkish brown on the outside and is not very regular in shape. This ball is divided inside into several cells, and in each cell there lives a grub which will also become a fly before summer is over.

Sometimes if you look at the back of an Oak leaf you will see it covered with small red spangles which are fringed and hairy. These spangles each contain a small insect, and they cling to their spangled homes long after the leaves have fallen to the ground.

Another insect home or gall grows in the leaves, and this one is much larger, sometimes as big as a marble. It too is made by an insect which is living inside, and this is called a leaf gall.

There is still another insect which attacks the leaf buds and causes them to grow in a curious way. Instead of opening as usual, the bud proceeds to make layers of narrow-pointed green leaves which it lays tightly one above the other, like the leaves of an artichoke or the scales of a fir cone. If you cut one of these Oak cones in half you will find many small insects inside, which have caused the bud to grow in this strange way.

And there is one other oak gall you must note. When the leaves have all fallen and the twigs are brown and bare, you see clusters of hard brown balls growing on some of them. They are smooth and glossy and the colour of dried walnuts. These also have been made by an insect. Sometimes you see the tiny hole in the ball by which the grub has bored its way out. This kind of gall does great harm to the tree, as it uses up the sap that should nourish the young twigs.

The wood of the Oak is very valuable. Sometimes a fine old tree will be sold for four hundred pounds, and every part of it can be used. The bark is valuable because it contains large quantities of an acid which is used in making ink; also in dyeing leather. Oak that has been lying for years in a peat bog, where there is much iron in the water, is perfectly black when dug out, black as ink, because the acid and the iron together have made the inky colour.

The wood of an Oak tree lasts very long: there are Oak beams in houses which are known to be seven hundred years old, and which are as good as the day they were cut. For centuries our ships were built of Oak, the wooden walls of old England, hearts of Oak, as they have often been called, because Oak wood does not readily splinter when struck by a cannon ball. And Oak wood will not quickly rot: we know of piles which have been driven into river beds centuries ago and are still sound and strong. In pulling down an old building lately in London, which was built six hundred and fifty years ago, the workmen found many oak piles in the foundations, and these were still quite sound.

PLATE II

THE BEECH

In the south of England there lived a holy hermit named St. Leonard whose hut was surrounded by a glade of noble Beech trees. The saint loved the beautiful trees, but by day he could not sit under their shady branches because of the vipers which swarmed about the roots, and by night the songs of many nightingales disturbed his rest. So he prayed that both the serpents and the birds might be taken away, and from that day no viper has stung and no nightingale has warbled in the Hampshire forests. So we read in the old story books. There are many such legends connected with the Beech tree. It has grown in this country as far back as we have any history, and it is often called the mother of the forest, because its thickly covered branches give shelter and protection to younger trees which are struggling to live.

The Beech is a cousin of the Oak. It is a large, handsome tree, with a noble trunk and widely spreading branches which sweep downward to the ground, and in summer every branch and twig is densely covered with leaves. No other tree gives such shade as the Beech, and in a hot summer day how tempting it is to lie underneath the branches and watch the squirrels glancing in and out among the rustling leaves and tearing the young bark.

In early spring you will recognise the Beech tree by its smooth olive-grey trunk. Only the Beech tree has such a smooth trunk when it is fully grown, and in consequence, every boy with a new knife tries to cut his name on its bark. In summer the young bud of next year's leaf is formed where each leaf joins the stem. All winter time you can see slender-pointed buds growing at the end of every twig, and when April comes each of these pointed buds has become a loose bunch of silky brown scales. Inside these protecting scales is hidden the young leaf bud, and soon the winter coverings unclose. For a short time they hang like a fringe round the base of the leaf stalk, but they quickly fall off and strew the ground beneath. The young leaves inside are folded like a fan, and they have soft silky hairs along the edges. How lovely they are when open! Each leaf is oval, with a blunted point at the end, and the edges are slightly waved.

At first the leaf colour is a clear pale green, through which the light seems to shine; and there is nothing more lovely than a Beech tree wood in early May when the young leaves are glistening against the clear blue sky. But as summer comes nearer the leaf colour darkens, and by July it is a deep, glossy green. You can then see very distinctly the veins which run from the centre to the edge of every leaf. These leaves grow so thickly that no stems or branches can be seen when the tree is in full foliage; and they are beautiful at all seasons. When autumn comes, bringing cold winds and a touch of frost, then the Beech tree leaves change colour: they seem to give us back again all the sunshine they have been storing up during summer, for they blaze like the sunset sky in myriad shades of gold, and red, and orange. In windy open places, these beautiful leaves soon strew the ground with a thick carpet that whirls and rustles in every breeze. But in sheltered glades, and especially in hedges, the leaves will hang all winter till they are pushed off by the new spring buds, and they glow russet red in the December sunshine, like the breast of the robin that is singing on the twig.

At every stage the Beech tree is a thing of beauty, and it is one of England's most precious possessions.

The young flowers appear about the same time as the leaves, and, like many other trees, the Beech has two kinds of flowers. The stamen flower has a long, drooping stalk, from the end of which hangs a loose covering of fine brown scales, with pointed ends. Beyond this scaly covering hangs a tassel of purplish brown stamens, eight or twelve, or more, each with a yellow head.

In old times people called these Beech nuts Beech-mast or food, and herds of pigs were taken to the Beech woods to feed on the nuts, which are said to contain oil. But pigs prefer to eat acorns, and nowadays the Beech nuts are left to fatten the squirrels and dormice, and the thrushes and deer, except those which children gather to string into necklaces.

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