THE WOODLANDS IN MAY.
THOSE whom choice or fortune led to spend May Day of the present year in the deep woodlands of the South, will have learnt to prize, as they never did before, and possibly may never again, the unrivalled splendour of the English Spring. Lasting and unbroken sunshine has called every tree and bush, from the oak to the trailing sweetbrier, into leaf together, and the beauty of the woodlands appeals to the senses with a force and freshness which the maturer months of summer foliage can never weaken or efface from the memory. There is an unwritten law in some of the villages Of America that on a certain day every able-bodied inhabitant shall go forth, and not return, until on land, either set apart, or otherwise suitable for the purpose, he has planted a tree. Now, if ever, such an example of the duty of man to Nature Should appeal to every Englishman. Even though the craze for destroying the beautiful hedgerow-timber, which, massed in the distance, makes the foreigner believe that he is for ever approaching a forest, which for ever recedes before him, 410 longer forms part of the enlightened farmer's creed, there are still many counties which the axe has left treeless and bare ; where the countryman never sees a real Wood, or knows the delight of walking for hours where the low sky never shows between the distant trunks, and the sound of the labour of the field does not penetrate. Yet there are still many counties rich in forest scenery, even in the South ; and there is no need to visit the famous cluster of great estates in the Midlands, where the woods of Clamber, Welbeak, and Mansfield unite to cover the site of the old Sherwood Forest with an unbroken tract of woodland, in -order to realise the full-dress beauty of the early spring. ljampshire, for example, may claim, apart from the New Forest area, a foremost place among the forest counties of the South. Of its million acres, a hundred thousand are ?overed by permanent and ancient wood, not sprinkled ln scattered patches, but deep and connected areas of trees and copse, in which timber, large and small, is re-
garded harvest, as the staple crop, with stated times for cutting
uu. equally with the produce of the meadow or the field. Trees are native of the soil. On the uplands between the deep and fertile valleys of the Itchen and the Test, the transition from natural woodland to the spreading fore.sts, which owe their present form to human care, may yet be traced. The downs stand thick with ancient and self-sown hawthorns, fragrant with the heavy perfume of the May- blossom,. and interspersed with tall patches of yellow gorse and waving feathery birch, among which the partridges are nesting, and the young plovers, driven by the drought from the open downs, are seeking food and shelter. In the true woodlands beyond, the scene changes to one of such sylvan beauty as the writer has never before beheld, and of which it would be vain to hope to convey more than some faint touch of memory. In that favoured soil, each and every tree and shrub to be found in the Southern counties is in its full raiment of young and tender leaf. Even the ashes have burst their black buds, and the flower-clusters hang like bunches of keys thick upon the branches. The maples are in flower, the cotton buds of the broad-leafed willow are rolling on the paths before the wind, the young oak-leaves are Crisp and curling, the ground-oaks show clusters of longer leaves of flesh-colour and green, the white-beam glistens with grey and silver, and flat white flowers, the beech-buds have dropped their brown night- caps, and the sun has smoothed out the creases, the elm branches are covered with almost summer drapery, and the senses are at once stirred and soothed by the ripple of the light air over the foliage, and the fresh smell of young green leaves. Beneath the timber-trees the copse- wood grows so strangely thick and strong, that a hundred stems seem to spring from every crown, and arching upwards and outwards, meet and overlap to form a continuous roof of clustering foliage, various in kind, but alike in strength and vigour. In the low lanes beneath, cloistered by this natural canopy, stretches in endless lines the flower-garden of the forest. Every foot of ground between the tree-stems and coppice-clusters is set thick with dark-blue hyacinths; and if we stoop and look up the long corridors between the thickets, with roofs so low that nothing larger than a fox could thread them, the distance merges into a level sheet of purple. Over bills and valleys, banks and glens, the hyacinths spread, with no difference in number or size, except that in the open spaces where the copse was felled last winter the spikes are taller and richer in scent and colour. Where the clay crops up, the hyacinths are mixed with priaaroses, small, but strongly perfumed, set as in a garden, in cushioned beds of moss. Standing on the hill-side at the margin of the wood, and facing the wind which blows over miles of similar forest-ground, the air sweeps by us fresh and clear, yet loaded with the perfume from hundreds of acres of this hyacinth-garden, like the scent of asphodels from the Elysian fields.
In spring, while the sap is still running upwards, these woods are as silent and deserted by man as the wheat-fields in June. The fallen timber lies ready for carting; but the grindstone stands dry with rusted handle, until wanted to sharpen the axes in autumn, and the young fern and flowers are twining among the stacked faggots and piles of wattle hurdles, which will not be moved till the fall of the leaf. There are few or no villages in the forest-country. The homes of the woodhuiders are scattered and remote, and, when found, present a strange and pleasing contrast to those of the labourers in the culti- vated country. For the former, the choice of site has not been limited by the artificial value which accrues to land in the neighbourhood even of the smallest village, and too often robs the labourer's cottage of the light and space which should be a countryman's birthright. The woodman has usually been a "free selector" in the choice of his dwelling-place, and it needs a wide acquaintance with these sylvan homes to weaken the first and natural impression that each and every one of these solitary cottages enjoys some peculiar and acci- dental advantage of setting and surroundings to which it owes its charm. The real reason for their beauty and their comfort is not far to seek. The cottage was built where it stands only because Nature had marked out the spot as a natural home for man. Shelter from the wind, water for the pony and cattle, a patch of good soil for a garden, and a glade of green grass for the cow to graze upon, may be all found together for the seeking in the wide woodlands ; and the spot where a company of hurdle-makers chose to light their mid-day fire, and raised a faggot-shelter in the winter, soon sees the growth of the woodman's home. A little reflection soon shows the reason, and even the necessity, for the beauty of the whole. The water in the little stream was the Bret condition of the building of the house. The stream made the rustic bridge necessary, and its own moisture decorated the under-side of the planks with moss and tiny ferns. The ancient trees, with the close turf under them, are not accidental either. The woodman wanted a few rods of pasture, and found it where the spreading oaks and sycamores had killed the undergrowth below. His orchard flourishes, and fallen apple-blossom smothers the garden plot, for where the oak grows there the apple grows also, and the autumns of centuries have enriched the ground with vegetable mould. The woodlands are the
poor man's natural home ; and while Nature gives the stream, the tiny park and paddock, the good soil, and the fostering shelter of the forest, the owner himself is seldom backward to use these sylvan gifts. His work among the timbers makes him master of the use of woodman's tools, and the split-oak fencing of his garden, and the well-built sheds for cattle and stock, show a sense for order and good workmanship in strong contrast to the makeshift shanties which too often disfigure the precincts of the field-labonror's cottage. In his daily fare he still tastes the forest dainties which have in all ages been regarded as his right :—
"I'll show thee the best springs ; I'll pluck thee berries ;
I'll fish for thee, and get thee wood enough. Show thee a jars nest and instruct thee how To snare the nimble marmozet ; I'll bring thee
To elust'ring filberts, and sometimes I'll get thee
Young Beanie's from the rock,"
says the woodland monster in The Tempest. The forest children are adepts in these, as well as other and gentler forms of woodcraft, and bring in tribute of brook-trout, young wood-pigeons, mushrooms, and wild fruits to the cottage table,—sylvan gifts. The woodland children, and even the woodland dogs, seem to feel the influence of the quiet and loneliness of their lives. Both seem to long for human society and human sympathy, and the little sons and
daughters of the cottage, with their canine guardians, are happy and content to lie down and wait near the temporary resting-place of visitors to the woods, the children amusing themselves by weaving wreaths of moss and flowers, neither suggesting nor asking any fnrther proof of good-will than that implied in a kindly toleration of their presence.
Previous page
