Forest path

“ The road wound down to it through magnificent forest, where the tree-ferns expanded glorious fronds fifteen or twenty feet long, and everywhere grew a wealth of exquisite greenery. Strange new forms—new at least to our eyes—constantly attracted the attention. What the forest lacks in brilliancy of flowers, it gains in its wonderful variety of form. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Even after it turns, reluctantly one thinks, to breast the slope southward and leave the friendly brook behind, the way leads still through this fine old forest whose moist gloaming fosters the growth of all mosses and through them in turn makes the forest tenure secure. ”

“ This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In and out, where the forest foot-paths wound from the grass through the trees, from the trees over the grass, the bright spring dresses of women and children, on the search for wild flowers, traveled to and fro in the lofty distance like spots of moving light. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But as the eye travels the long vista of ascending and retreating forest, the green and the brown of the near-by trees fade gradually away until the forest becomes a fluffy mantle of white upon the distant mountain side. ”

“ On the crest of the mountain, where, from the valley below, the early sunlight is first seen to break through, the trees, standing apart, do not appear so much like a forest as like a congregation of individuals, each with an identity of its own. Indeed, there among the fierce gales of autumn and winter each shapes its own life in a glorious independence, expressive in the knotty, twisted boles and the picturesque crowns. But in summer the breezes strain through the foliage with the lethargic sound of the ocean surge ”

“ It is surrounded by gigantic forest trees, whose shadows make it a cool retreat in the heat of noon, and whose dense foliage fills the air with freshness and fragrance when the sun is hot in the sky. Towards its head, a cold stream comes creeping around the boulders, and dancing and singing down the rocks from a copious spring, a short way back in the forest. ”

“ This heavy growth converts the route here into an interminable forest, where only occasional spots or fragments of sunshine peep through slight openings, that appear to be at no greater distance than the tree-tops over our heads. ”

“ Now let the pure, cold light of science, with its precise and exact laws, fade away into the warm, mellow glow of romance, till we picture the forest as an epitome of human life, with its struggles, its suffering, and the slow but certain progress from infancy to old age and death. For here, among the forest trees, are every age and condition represented. ”

“ The forest trees press forward to the water around all the windings of the shores in most imposing array, as if they were courting their fate, coming down from the mountains far and near to offer themselves to the axe, thus making the place a perfect paradise for the lumberman. To the lover of nature the scene is enchanting. ”

“ It was as lovely a forest scene as ever the eye rested upon, for the ground was broken, and a thousand beautiful accidents diversified the landscape. Every here and there a tall mound of earth, sometimes covered with turf, sometimes rounded with brushwood, would rise up, bearing aloft a graceful clump of trees, while the setting sun, pouring its long horizontal rays across the wild track, cast lengthened shadows over the ground below, and brightened all the higher points with gleams of purple light. ”

“ The great growths of the forest rose on every side. There was no view, no vista, save the infinitely repeated umbrageous tangle beneath the trees, where their boles stood more or less distinct or dusky till merged indefinitely into shadow and distance. ”

“ For miles of the way on either side of the narrow road the forest is impenetrable even to the eye, save for the shortest distances, presenting a tangled mass of foliage, vines, and branches such as can be matched only by the virgin forests of Brazil, or the dangerous jungles of India. ”

“ Hitherto our travels have been upon the wide, open prairie, the trackless plain of sand, the frozen lake, the thin scattering woods of the North, or the treeless snow-clad “Barrens.” Now we are about to enter a great forest,—a forest where the leaves never fade, where the flowers are always in bloom,—a forest where the woodman's axe has not yet echoed, where the colonist has hardly hewed out a single clearing,—a vast primeval forest,—the largest in the world. ”

“ The unmown grass stands deep all about these encroaching forest trees and, lacking the care of the farmer, has cured itself and waits in vain to be harvested, while all through it the sunlight silvers the dry white panicles of the everlasting, the only flower of the season on these terraced fields which so steadily and surely drift back to be again the forest from which the college-bred pioneer with such labor reclaimed them. ”

“ The going is through forests, the tree trunks straight and very close together, so that he will see very little of the open sky and less of the landscape. By way of compensation the forest itself is remarkably beautiful. Its undergrowth, though dense, is very low and even, not more than a foot or so off the ground ”

“ My way lay through the edge of a forest—one of those magnificent forests of gigantic trees that stretch back from the river for miles, and which are now and then broken by a fertile prairie, or, as we should call it, a natural meadow. ”

“ It is in such places, and on sudden eminences that rise above the forest-level, on a precipice, for example, that overlooks the surrounding wood, that the forest shows individual trees possessing the characters of standards, like those we see by the roadsides and in the open field. ”

“ Far down below the river winds through a broad valley, the greater expanse of which, being low and swampy, is covered with a dense thicket of luxuriant vegetation. In parts we see great masses of dark, sombre forest, but even in the distance this is relieved by variety of colouring, flowering trees, perhaps, or the brilliant emerald of clusters of tree-ferns. ”

“ The world is another place to the man who knows, and to the man who is ignorant of Natural History. To the one the earth is full of a thousand significations, to the other meaningless.
First of all, then, for a few words on the geology of the Forest; for upon this everything depends—not only the scenery, but its Flora and Fauna, the growth of its trees and the course of its streams. Throughout it is composed of the Middle-Eocene, the Osborne and Headon Beds capping the central portion, with their fluvio-marine formation. ”

“ That which has delighted to excel in boundlessness within the bounds of this one leaf, has also transformed the whole forest. There is no number to the particular colour of the one leaf. The forest is like a thing so changeful of its nature that change clings to it as a quality, apparent even during the glance of a moment. ”

“ What are the National Forests from which much of our timber comes?
Trees are their dominant characteristic, but trees are hardly alone or even self-sufficient, for a forest is a vibrantly complex, interwoven community of many forms of life. Within its depths the tree, shrubby plant, large animal, and minute creature struggle together and against each other to survive and to perpetuate their species.
From the beginning to the end of its days, the tree exerts a ceaseless effort in the contest for life. Like man, it must have air, light, heat, water, and food. ”

“ 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 ”

“ And over the forest surged a sea of green life, the climbers of a thousand varieties, some that floated airily, in lacelike filaments, from the tallest branches others that coiled and wound about the trees like huge serpents ”

“ Coming downwards they spread over the tops of the lower hills until, from gorge to gorge, the forest trees join hands, and an unbroken forest sweeps downwards, gathering density and luxuriousness until it sweeps over the valleys and up the sides of the hills beyond. ”

“ Deeper and deeper, and farther and farther, they advanced into the forest, encountering every variation of woodland scenery, and every alternation of forest travelling; sometimes finding it easy, again finding it difficult, yet at no time encountering any very serious obstacle. ”

“ The indistinct contours and delicate lights of the drifting vapors and cloud forms, as they wander across the trees, blend with the serene aspect of the forest. At other times the clouds gather into banks and lie motionless in some valley or rest like a veil upon the mountain tops. ”

“ The forest, hitherto silent, and apparently without life, is suddenly awakened with confused noises, metallic and human—the peasants shout, halloo, sing, and bang together their pots, kettles, and pieces of iron, striking every bush and thicket with their staves, and scaring every animal before them. Flights of wood-pigeons, coveys of partridges, birds of every size, species, and plumage, pass like moving shadows above their heads. ”

“ Belonging to the old forest race, they have been closely pressed on all sides by their fellows, and the trunks rise in a branchless shaft to a commanding height; their foliage crowns the summit in full masses, and if never devoid of the native graces of each species, still it has not all the beauty developed by the free growth of the open fields. The older ashes, elms, and oaks are striking trees, much more stern and simple than their brethren of the lawns and meadows, all bearing the peculiar character of forest growth. ”

“ The more rapid growth and greater dimensions of trees standing near the boundary of the forest, are matters of familiar observation. "Long experience has shown that trees growing on the confines of the wood may be cut at sixty years of age as advantageously as others of the same species, reared in the depth of the forest, at a hundred and twenty. ”

“ Along the edge of such a forest will be found a host of pioneers pushing out among the grasses, making ready, by conditions of shade, protection from drying winds and other influences, for the seedlings of the forest trees that creep slowly but resistlessly out to capture areas that by right of previous occupancy belong to them. In practically all parts of the world, with a few local exceptions, wherever the forest was the original type there is this ceaseless struggle to reclaim the open places, often or usually peopled by grass. ”

“ We have now felled forest enough everywhere, in many districts far too much. Let us restore this one element of material life to its normal proportions, and devise means of maintaining the permanence of its relations to the fields, the meadows, and the pastures, to the rain and the dews of heaven, to the springs and rivulets with which it waters the earth. ”

“ As the seasons went on, the branches of the tall trees grew so very thick that they shut out the light down in the forest. Then the Little Tree could not see the sun at all, and one by one the ferns and flowers at her roots died from the dampness, and the Little Tree was all alone! Nothing broke the silence of the dark, still forest save the calls of the birds when they returned each year to build their nests, or the sound of the branches swaying in the breeze. ”

“ Sixty days before, that field was covered with a heavy growth of primitive forest, standing in its native majesty, a mountain mass of green vigor and sturdy life, and as seemingly invincible against the assaults of man as it had been against those of the elements whose fury it had so long withstood. ”