File:The woods and by-ways of New England (1872) (14592728900).jpg

Identifier: woodsbywaysofnew00flag (find matches)
Title: The woods and by-ways of New England
Year: 1872 (1870s)
Authors: Flagg, Wilson, 1805-1884
Subjects: Trees
Publisher: Boston, J. R. Osgood and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
dilapidatedstone-wall, half concealed by tall shrubs and vines andby trees that have encroached upon its boundaries.Emerging into this open space we find ourselves in anold orchard that still bears meagre crops of fruit, whichwas an appendage to a farm long neglected and abandoned,now half restored to its original condition as a forest. I have often called the attention of lovers of natureto the peculiar beauty which is apparent in an old or-chard. I know it is not much admired by improvers. Ithas neither trimness nor elegance. There is nothing inthe style of the trees or the character of the ground thatawakens any ideas of aristocratic dignity. The old stone-walls that enclose it, loose and dilapidated, betray no ex-travagant outlay of money. They remind you only ofthe simple labor of hard hands and the rude husbandryof toiling men. The ideas associated with the old or-chard are those of rustic simplicity, — of apple-gatheringby rural swains; of golden, russet, and crimson fruit, t
Text Appearing After Image:
OLD ORCHARDS. 117 hanging from the trees or lying in heaps upon the ground;of juvenile sports; of truancy and birdnesting; of thecider-mill and the apple-cart, and of hard bargainingby men whose accumulations can be made only by penu-rious saving. The chief beauty of the apple-tree — that kind ofbeauty which affects the eye, rather than the mind —comes from its flowers and fruit. But when it has grownhoary with the mosses of age, there is no small tree thatdisplays so many picturesque qualities, in which it ishardly surpassed by the oak. The apple-tree, indeed, hasmany of the characters of the oak. Though of inferiorsize, it displays great breadth in proportion to its height,and a corresponding sturdiness of appearance, caused bythe length and horizontal spread of its lower branches.There is an air of picturesque antiquity about an oldorchard which we look for in vain among the trees ofour forest. Whether this comes from the greater age ofthe fruit-trees, which have been preserved

Note About Images