Green Forest

“ There, in the long aisles, settles that depth of shade which no pencil can give, and that colouring which no canvas can retain, as the sunlight pierces through the green web of leaves, flinging, as it sets, a crown of gold round each tree-trunk.
Let no one, however, think they know anything of the Forest by simply keeping to the high road and the beaten tracks. ”

“ He would be a strange traveller who would not forsake the dusty highway and plunge into the cool tangled glades till all sense of direction is lost. For the special and peculiar beauty of this, unlike most Forest enclosures, is that there are no straight rides cutting it transversely, but the winding alleys seem of Nature’s own planting, and these make it easy to stray, one fair group of noble trees after another beckoning along the wide green ways into the heart of the wood. One may fancy one is following the direction of the road, but it is far out of sight in a few minutes. ”

“ I have endeavoured, whenever there was an opportunity, to point out the natural history of the Forest, feeling sure that, from a lack of this knowledge, so many miss the real charms of the country. "One green field is like another green field," cried Johnson. ”

“ One day word came to the Green Forest and to the Green Meadows that Old Mother Nature was coming to see how all the little meadow and forest people were getting along, to settle all the little troubles and fusses between them, and to find out who were and who were not obeying the orders she had given them when she had visited them last. ”

“ Winter and summer, these forests keep their green ranks closed against the winds, their moss-hung boughs blotting out the sun. Today, wilderness roads wind between the green walls made by these ancient forest giants, whose branches, interlacing overhead, sough and murmur in vagrant winds. ”

“ Behind us stands Godshill inclosure, and the Forest with its dark moors and woods. Below winds the Avon, with its orchards nestling on the hill side, stretching its silver coil of waters along the green meadows, the sunlight gleaming on each bend and turn. ”

“ The evergreens showed up everywhere, in delicate vigorous beauty, and we counted unguessed masses of pine among the hills. I think we always expect a little sadness with the fall of the leaves, but instead there is a sense of elation, with the greater spread of light and the wider views opening everywhere. The wood roads showed more plainly than in summer, and paths stood out green across the fields. The tender unveiling of autumn had revealed the hidden topography of the forest, and countless small ravines and slopes were suddenly made plain. ”

“ Thus it is sad in the forest, and strangely quiet, as in a churchyard, for not even the wind can penetrate the green surface. It passes rushing through the crowns, so that sometimes we catch an upward glimpse of bright yellow sunshine as though out of a deep gully. And as men in sternest fight are silent, using all their energy for one purpose, so here there is no sign of gay and happy life, there are no flowers or coloured leaves, but the endless, dull green, in an infinity of shapes.
Even the animals seem to shun the dark forest depths ”

“ Here and there, too, as at Fritham, small farmsteads show their scanty crops of corn, or, as at Alum Green and Queen’s North, green lawns pierce and separate the woods, pastured by herds of cattle, with forest pools white with buckbean, and the little milkwort waving its blue heath on the banks.
These are the main characteristics of the New Forest, and, in some points at least, were the same in the days of the Red King. Nature, when left to herself, even in the course of centuries, changes little. The wild boars, and the wolves, and the red deer, are gone. ”

“ We motored through the wet sunshiny country, softly dipped and softly lifted, blue-green forest and wide ripe harvest fields, blue and purple and crimson beet fields, long low brown and rust-red towns with square church towers, Sunday people out in the doorways, and swallows always flying low and crying. ”

“ It is pleasant driving through the woods, even in winter; once within their bounds, we feel the charm of the forest again. Though dark and sombre in the background, yet close at hand, the old pines and hemlocks are green as ever, with lights and shadows playing about them, which in the distance become imperceptible. The trunks and limbs of the leafless trees, also, never fail to be a source of much interest. The pure wintry air is still touched with the fragrance of bark and evergreens, and the woods have a winter-light of their own, filled with
pale gray shadows falling on the snow. ”

“ But a stream of sunshine is let loose, and the gloom is confounded with glory; over all that night-like reign the jocund day goes dancing, and the forest revels in green or in golden light. Thousands and tens of thousands of pines are there, and as you gaze upon the whole mighty array, you fear, lest it might break the spell, to fix your gaze on any one single tree. But there are trees there that will force you to look on themselves alone, and they grow before your eyes into the kings of the forest. ”

“ The whole country is green at this moment, more so than at any other period of the year. The earth is completely decked in delicate verdure of varied shades: the fruit-trees have dropped their blossoms, and the orchards and gardens are green; the forest has just put on its fresh foliage, the meadows are yet uncolored by the flowers, and the young grain-fields look grassy still. ”

“ The high range of the Blue Ridge was seen stretching along the sky like a vast purple wall, while, nearer, the lower hills rose impressively up from the plain. How clean and pare and shining the woods appear this lovely morning! The glorious old chestnut trees reflect the sunlight and shimmering masses from their shining green leaves, while their creamy white flowers make a grand display amidst the various tinted foliage of all the forest; and the stately basswood, covered with light yellow bloom filled with the hum of innumerable bees, heightens the picture. ”

“ All these woods there are for rambles, flushed in the spring with wood-anemones and wood-sorrel, set in the green moss and the greener heather of the bilberry. Nowhere, too, in the Forest, than in these woods, have I seen more lovely sunsets. Through some deep-cut oriel of the trees have I watched the sun begin to sink, each moment burning brighter, and then suddenly its great brand of fire would fall, reddening each tree trunk, and crimson billows of clouds come rolling eastward. ”

“ It loses its charms only on the spot where man has interfered with Nature's plans, in trying to provide accommodations for the settlers. The trees have been cut down, and the fresh, green forest converted into a dry, dusty street, cheered all through the hot afternoon by the dreary chirp of a grasshopper, or the buzz of countless millions of healthy flies that swarm around the very doors and surroundings of provision depots. ”

“ You walk beneath them through shady avenues, where the young grass is like velvet, and every imaginable shade of refreshing green lies before your eyes. There is the tender May-leaf green of the shrubs, another of the soft lawns, that of the different trees, of the more distant hill-slopes, and, beyond all, the deepest intensified green of the Black Forest rising nobly everywhere around. A hideous little bright-green cottage, prominent on one of the hills, irritates us considerably, not harmonizing with its deep background of pines, and we long at first to ruthlessly erase it from the picture ”

“ The Avon still flows on with its floating gardens of flowers—lilies and arrowhead, and the loosestrife waving its crimson plumes among the green reeds. The Forest streams, too, still flow on the same, losing themselves in the woods, eddying round and round in the deep, dark, prison-pools of their own making, and then escaping over shallows and ledges of rolled pebbles, left dry in the summer, and on which the sunlight rests, and 15 the shadows of the beeches play, but in the winter chafed by the torrent. ”

“ Sometimes they were sent to the mountains at West River and the Great Falls, "to lodge on ye top," and from these lofty watch-towers the keen eyes of the rangers scanned the mapped expanse of forest, when it was green with summer leafage, or gorgeous as a parterre with innumerable autumnal hues, or veiled in the soft haze of Indian summer, or gray with the snows of winter and the ramage of naked branches, "viewing for smoaks" of hostile camp-fires. ”

“ From this summit down to the foot stand the giant cedars, as crowded as the yellow stalks in a Minnesota wheatfield. But in place of the flat monochrome of a wheatfield, our sloping forest presents a most fascinating color spectacle. The slanting rays of the sun tinge the waving tree-tops with a deeply saturated yellowish-green, curiously interspersed with a mosaic of dark, almost black streaks and patches of shade, due to clouds and other causes, and the whole edged by the dazzling snow.
If we descend and enter this forest, a cathedral-like awe thrills the nerves. ”

“ May 28th.—The most extraordinary blight is now upon the trees that I believe ever was known: it is confined entirely to the oak, and chiefly to the large trees, although in some parts it is extending to the young plantations. The whole of the High Meadow woods and great part of the Forest, particularly Russell’s Enclosure, and where the timber is thick, are entirely stripped of their leaves, and look as if fire had passed through them. Where a beech stands amongst them, it is perfectly green, and the oaks all around quite brown. ”

“ Where the voyageurs land for their nooning, or camp at nightfall, or pause to gum the splits in their birch canoes, the forest in the full flush of spring verdure is a fairy woods. Against the elms and the maples leafing out in airy tracery that reveals the branches bronze among the budding green, stand the silver birches, and the somber hemlocks, and the resinous pines. Upbursting from the mold below is another miniature forest—a forest of ferns putting out the hairy fronds that in another month will be above the height of a man. ”

“ All the glowing growth of the forest seems locked and interlocked together, as though the sons of the wilderness were engaged in a wrestling match, trying which could first uproot the other from the ancient soil. Now we face a phalanx of veteran oaks, clothed utterly, and their green boughs hidden, beneath mantles of beautiful Spanish moss ”

“ There is the open Forest stretching away, with its wide views and its silver border of sea, with its marshy hollows and crested heights; there is the Boldre—Byldwr, or full stream—gliding through meadow and thicket till it becomes the broad Lymington River and meets the tide between the marshes; there are the deep green woods of the manor climbing up from the riverside to meet other woods at Ladycross, or opening out on the uplands at Heathy Dilton ”

“ To push a way through the ever-thickening bracken becomes more and more laborious; there is scarce a choice but to follow a winding narrow path, green with grass and moss and strewn with leaves, in and out and round the impenetrable thickets. Whither it leads—if, indeed anywhere—there is no sign. The precise sense of direction is quickly lost, and then glancing round and finding nothing but fern and bush and tree on every hand, it dawns upon the mind that this is really a forest—not a wood, where a few minutes either way will give you a glimpse of the outer light through the ash-poles. ”

“ Now they glided past between mighty forests intergrown with reeds,—now these became more open—plantations became visible,—and now, as they approached nearer and nearer to the gigantic commercial city of the south, the constantly increasing civilization and culture had driven the old, venerable, primeval forest far into the background, so that its distant tops could only be discerned as a green stripe on the horizon, and, instead thereof, a boundless sea of waving sugar-canes, and tall, stiff, cotton-plants surrounded them. ”

“ Some of the meets were most picturesque; sometimes in the heart of the forest at a great carrefour, alleys stretching off in every direction, hemmed in by long straight lines of winter trees on each side, with a thick, high undergrowth of ferns, and a broad-leaved plant I didn't know, which remained green almost all winter. It was pretty to see the people arriving from all sides, in every description of vehicle—breaks, dog-carts, victorias, farmer's gigs—grooms with led horses, hunting men in green or red coats, making warm bits of colour in the rather severe landscape. ”

“ A deep lane, its banks a garden of ferns, its hedge matted with honeysuckle, and woven together with bryony, runs, winding along a side space of green, to the latch-gate, guarded by an enormous oak, its limbs now fast decaying, its rough bark grey with the perpetual snow of lichens, and here and there burnished with soft streaks of russet-coloured moss ”

“ I see it now, one of those restricted forest openings to which we often went, the wall of the jungle all round, and some small attalea palms left standing, the green of their long plumes as hard and bright as though varnished. Nothing else is there that is green, except the weeds which came when the sunlight was let in by the axe. The spindly forest columns rise about, pallid in a wall of gloom, draped with withered stuff and dead cordage. Their far foliage is black and undistinguishable against the irregular patch of overhead blue. ”

“ Green on the hillside! green in the meadows and pastures! green everywhere—all around is changeless and everlasting green! as if hillside and valley, forest and field, had but a single dress for morning, noon, and night, and that only and always green! True, there is the music of the birds, joyous notes and variant, happy and hilarious, in the spring-time, but there is no cricket under the flat stone in the pasture, his song is not heard in the stone wall, or in the corner of the fences ”