The Sylva Americana: Or A Description Of The Forest Trees Indigenous To The United States, Practically And Botanically Considered (1832) - Hardcover

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A mong the variety of useful and interesting productions abounding in this vast continent, none claim our attention in a more eminent degree than the indigenous trees of our forests. Independent of ornamenting the earth and of furnishing us with timber and fuel, they arrest the progress of impetuous and dangerous winds ;maintain the temperature of the air by diminishing extreme cold, and regulating intense heat; oppose the formation of ice, and shelter the earth from the scorching rays of the sun ;produce an abundance of water in the streams, and oppose a barrier to washing away or undermining their banks; preserve and enrich the soil on hills and mountains; discharge the electricity of the atmosphere; and serve as laboratories for purifying the air we breathe. The trees of our country recall the idea of it in the most forcible manner, wherever we meet them; and are often the first objects that attract the attention of those who have been long absent from their native land, and who, on their return, pour out their genuine effusions of joy on beholding them. We are aware that many an American has sighed under the shade of the banana for a sight at the village elm, the well-knoA vn oak, or the unchanged pine of New England. We are told of a young I ndian, Pontaveri from Otaheite, who, amidst the splendor of Paris, regretting the simple beauty of his native island, sprang forward at the unexpected sight of a banana tree in the Garden of Plants, embraced it, while his eyes were bathed in tears, and exclaiming with a voice of rapture.... A h! tree of my native country !seemed by a delightful illusion of sensibility, to imagine himself, for a moment ,transported to the land which gave him birth. In the United States, there are more than 140 species of forest trees, which exceed 30 feet in height: in France, there are but 30 trees that attain this size, of which 18
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)