The Native Landscape Reader

“Appreciation of Natural Beauty” (1898)

44 ossiaN coLe siMoNds appreciation of natural Beauty (1898) If people could realize and enjoy the beauty around them, they would be happier and better, and the earth would gradually improve in appearance. They would see with pleasure the brightening tints of the willows and dogwoods that come with the first warm days of March, the tinge of brown caused by thousands of blossoms which a little later show in the distance, the graceful shape of the elm, then the reds and yellows that mark the place of the maples, and the varying shades of green as every gain in warmth and sunlight pushes out the young leaves from the swelling buds. They would note that the colors of spring are almost as varied as those of autumn. The little velvety leaves of the white oak are worth going miles to see when in May they hang like half-open umbrellas from the ends of the branchlets, and range from yellowish-white through pink to the deepest purplish-red. At the same time, the large, yellow buds of the shag-bark hickory, with their red bracts, are as showy as most flowers. There is also a wonderful wealth of beauty in our native thorn and crabapple trees, with their spreading shapes, their varying shades of foliage, and their profusion of blossoms. Later still, other members of the rose family, the spiraeas, raspberries, blackberries, and the wild roses themselves, supply bloom and color. Although during the latter part of summer , and through the autumn months, our trees and shrubs do not produce flowers in abundance, there are nearly always some to be found until those of the witch-hazel, remaining as a yellow mist after the golden leaves have fallen, fill the November air with perfume. Before the blossoms of May are gone, the seeds of the elm and soft maple are already ripening, and from that time on the fruits of trees and shrubs add to the interest generally felt in the summer and autumn foliage. Not only do the flowers , leaves, and fruits please us with their thousand shapes and colors, their surfaces sometimes smooth and glossy, sometimes dull and soft, but the trees and shrubs From Second Report of the American Park and Outdoor Art Association (Boston: Rockwell and Churchill, 1898), 75–80. aPPRECiation of natuRal BEauty 45 themselves, by the manner in which their foliage is massed, by their effect when seen close at hand or in the distance, when seen in sunshine or mist, in a still atmosphere or in a breeze, by daylight which brings out every detail, or silhouetted against the night sky, help to make up that wonderful variety and beauty which must surely be appreciated by all who expect to feel at home in the next world. There is time merely to allude to the humbler forms of vegetation, the grasses and herbaceous plants that cover the earth so attractively, to the clouds that should be admired by each of us as much as they were by the poet Shelley, and which should be given a place in every design, to the varying shapes of ground surface, to the far-reaching seas, and to the running brooks and placid lakes with their rocky or leafy margins. Probably each of us could give illustrations showing how people fail to get the most out of life through inability to see such things as I have mentioned. Someone who attended our meeting last year, and who lived in Kentucky, where the tuliptree grows to perfection, had never before seen its blossoms. An enthusiastic Board of Park Commissioners commenced their operations by clearing away all the undergrowth , denuding the steep hillside as well as the valley. A glance at the adjoining land showed dozens of groups of magnificent specimens of the prairie rose. The commissioners acknowledged the beauty of this growth when it was pointed out to them, and also their own mistake in having destroyed similar bushes, and they were quite willing to let the steep bank become recovered with the wild grapes and roses, lindens and thorns, which were already sprouting from the surface after having been cut away by the caretaker’s scythe. This effort of Nature to clothe herself in an attractive garb had also been unnoticed till attention was called to it. The practice of cutting away the undergrowth on the part of those who start out to make improvements is one of the most common sins committed against outdoor art...