Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 March 1884 — Trees. [ARTICLE]

Trees.

Thank God for trees! What gladness they diffuse into our lives, and how they adorn our world! Who would exchange existence with the inhabitant of some ice-bound coast, or shadeless, arid desert, even to have the sole supremacy of such a region ? Better were one little wood within our happier clime, whose trees form a grateful shelter from the summer’s heat, and a protection against the winter’s storms. What a voiceless significance is there in these sylvan friends! Is not the forest monarch, the proud and lofty oak, that could tell the story of centuries, an emblem of grandeur and endurance ? And the “snow-loving” pines, they symbolize the brave, fearless spirit, ever erect in tempest as in calm —the changeless pines, clothed in perennial beauty, whether filling the woods with fragrance, or forming in dark masses along some far-off mountain ridge. What a charm lies within the soft, deep shadows in a grove of elms, Whose interlacing boughs. Festooned in arches, meet for lovers’ vows. Or the wide-spreading chestnuts, so glorious with their snowy blossoms and rich perfume, . The affluent foliage of whose branches made A cavern of cool shade. Surely these are the types of repose and sweet content, giving a home-like loveliness to each scene, whether it be the canopied avenue or the solitary tree, that by “its blossom, white and sweet,” imparts a poetry even to the “village smithy.” But. the variety of these forest children is infinite, each possessing a different beauty! And how we hail our old companions, when, after months of dreary winter, and spring’s long-linger-ing approach, we find ourselves in those unforgotten wood-paths, and there, in the gladness ofa sweet day-dream, exclaim once more, “Thank God for trees!”— Exchange.