The Project Gutenberg eBook, Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35,
September, 1860, by Various

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Title: Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860

Author: Various

Release Date: February 15, 2004 [eBook #11087]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 6, ISSUE
35, SEPTEMBER, 1860***

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THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

VOL. VI--SEPTEMBER, 1860.--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 convinced that in no other part of the vegetable
creation has Nature done so much to provide at once for the comfort, the
sustenance, and the protection of her creatures. 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, except 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 capturing 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 likewise the earliest
temples for his worship, and their fruits his first offerings upon the
divine altar.

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
archi