of that particular flower, will mark the time when the vegetable in question will again be most likely to be sown to advantage. In this beautiful concord we should in time secure a certain guide to healthy and prosperous operations, alike in field and garden, and should be able to calculate exactly when to look for the results. "If we found," for instance, says one who laboured hard to establish the fact, "that on sowing peas or other seed when the gooseberry-bush blossomed, they were ready for getting when the corn-marigold flowered, we might be pretty sure that every succeeding year the same uniformity would prevail, and by a little attention, the suitable times for all other such operations would be determined." It is not only in reference to garden and farm produce that such a calendar is at once possible and very interesting. So exact is the agreement between the period in the leafing and the flowering of trees and plants, that meeting with one kind, in some fair and pleasant field, we are assured that in the woodland we may now look with certainty for some other, each being an intimation of the arrival of its companion. That such a correspondence exists. between the arrival and departure of migratory birds, and in their songs and nest-building; also in the hatching of certain insects, and the appearance of certain flowers, has long been known to naturalists, and many plants have been named from this beautiful harmony, the cuckooflower for instance, and probably the wake-robin. By and bye, when men learn to love nature as dearly as it deserves, these engaging truths will all be marshalled, and almanacks will deal not only with the changes of the moon, and the sun's rising and setting, but will become tables of the sweet harmonies that subsist between nature's calm and pleasant teachings and man's highest practical wisdom. It is impossible to enter nature at any point, but we come at once upon something useful to know; and the knowledge of which increases our happiness. The particular place held by the ash in the sequence of arrivals of first leaves was established by the celebrated Benjamin Stillingfleet, who in Norfolk, in the year 1765, made out the following list of dates. Of course they will vary with the season, a late spring driving all a little forwards, a forward one giving each a little earlier place, but the relative periods will probably be found to vary but slightly. It is with the leafing of trees as with the rise and sweet sheen of the constellations. Their places vary with the hour of the night, but they never alter their positions with regard to one another and to the pole-star. Omitting some of the less important trees and shrubs, the following long Individual trees, of course, may be found anticipating the generality, just as in late autumn we may often observe individuals still green after the great mass of their kind has become denuded. The principle, nevertheless, remains true, and all that is needed is for various observers in different places to note down the particulars for a few consecutive years, and then compare them. The least variation in the periods of events in nature available for the purpose of a calendar appears to be in the arrival of the migratory birds, and in the hatching of young rooks; the greatest, on the other hand, is in the blossoming of the turnip, the appearance of the yellow butterfly, and the singing of the loved and always welcome thrush. The flowers of the ash-tree are the simplest known to Botany, at least as regards trees. They make their appearance long before the leaf-buds open, at first resembling clusters of ripe blackberries, and closely seated upon the twigs, towards the extremities. This rich and vinous colour is wholly given by the anthers, which while young are large and oval, and very densely packed. By degrees the mass becomes disintegrated, and the innumerable little blossoms compose a loose and branching panicle, not unlike that of the lilac-tree flowers. Between every couple of anthers lies, usually, a thin flat ovary, and this in due course, ripens into the well-known winglike body called the "ash-key." Some trees never produce fruit; the ash being one of those plants which, without being structurally unisexual, after the manner of the Amentiferæ, such as the oak and the willow, are nevertheless, by non-development of some portion, unisexual very often in effect. In other words, some individuals produce perfect or bisexual flowers, while others are deficient in the pistilline or female portion. Hence it is that in winter, when the "keys" hang upon most indi viduals in those dense brown clusters which are so strikingly characteristic of this beautiful tree when leafless, certain other individuals are totally without them. They are generally at a considerable height, few being procurable by the hand lifted from below; and the same of course is the condition of the flowers, which, like those of poplars, often make us envy the birds, to whom no blossom is inaccessible. Many marks thus serve to isolate and distinguish the ash-tree, and if more were needed, we have them in the peculiar curving upwards of the extremities of the branches, at least when the tree is adult and growing old; in the flattened extremities of the twigs, and in the sooty-black buds, which at all seasons are very remarkable. It is pleasing to observe for what very different situations the various figures of trees severally adapt themselves. The ash shows nowhere better than at the corner of a wood, where, by bringing off the heaviness of other trees, it forms, by reason of its lightness, a sort of transition from foliage to airy space. Hence, too, the exquisite effect of ash-trees when they have shot up, from wind-conveyed seeds, among ruins, such as those of roofless abbeys. The spectacle of a dismantled abbey is always full of power for the soul. Art seems fast verging into Nature; the walls arabesqued with ivy; every ledge and "coigne of vantage" occupied by the sweet azure of the harebell, grasses, or yellow hawkweeds; the lines of massive pedestals that mark where sprang the glorious pillars; the broken lacework of the spaces where once were windows; all these things are touching and impressive ;wonderful is it how all seem made more eloquent, when, disclosed here and there, through crevice and aperture, we get glimpses of the delicate foliage of the ash. No tree harmonises so well with dilapidation; the very hue seems a reflection of gray antiquity. THE MOUNTAIN-ASH. THE mountain-ash must not be associated with the genuine ash. The name is a very unfortunate one, referring simply to the likeness, slight as it really is, between the leaves. This likeness consists however in nothing more than both being pinnate. The mountain-ash is a near relative of the apple and pear. Hence we find in its blossoms the rosaceous type of corolla, while the fruit corresponds, in a certain measure, with that of the orchard, though in dimensions little more than a berry. The charming spectacle which the flowers present in May places this tree in the first rank of ornamental ones; and although for two or three months afterwards it makes no show, the delay is more than compensated by September, when the rich vermilion clusters attract the most incurious. "The mountain-ash No eye can overlook, when 'mid a grove Of yet unfaded trees she lifts her head, Deck'd with autumnal berries, that outshine These berries, popularly deemed poisonous, are perfectly free from hurtful properties. In the west and north of Scotland they are commonly converted into jelly for the breakfast-table; in Siberia likewise they are put to a similar use. When carefully prepared, this jelly has a beautiful tinge of violet in it. THE CHESNUT. CONCERNING the courtly chesnut it is merely necessary to speak of the differences which keep it distinct from the horse-chesnut, neither of these noble productions of nature being met with in Britain except as ornaments of the park or pleasure-ground. For although the sweet chesnut was introduced as far back as the time of the Romans, and has now become thoroughly at home (except as to the ripening of its fruit); it has not, like the elm and sycamore, taken its place in the wood and wilderness. Wherever met with, it is always obviously from the hand of the planter. As for the horse-chesnut, it appears to have been in England only some three centuries. Of the sweet chesnut, Castanea vesca, many magnificent examples occur in different parts, sufficiently venerable to give the perfect idea of "ancient Britons." They are still referable, however, to the origin spoken of. The differences in question are readily enumerated. In the sweet chesnut the leaves are simple and feather-veined: in the horse-chesnut they are septate. The flowers of the latter are produced in superb clusters, every corolla having its whiteness richly broken with patches of gold and crimson: those of the sweet chesnut, on the other hand, are destitute of the brightness we connect with the idea of blossom; they are unisexual also, the males growing in slender spikes, the females in prickly knobs. The purpose we had in view at the beginning is now completed; namely, the giving some account of the forest and other large and commanding trees ordinarily met with in Great Britain. There are many more trees of a smaller description, and all have abundance of interesting and curious history and association, so that these chapters, were it desirable at the present time, might be trebled. Who, for instance, is unacquainted with the Elder, the blossoming of which is a sign that summer is matured, and the fruit of which shows, in its blackness, that summer is over? Then there are the wild pear, the wild apple, the wild medlar, and the wild cherry,-trees mostly loaded in spring with snowy bloom. After these we find the guelder-rose, the tamarisk, the box, and the spindle-tree; the Frangula, the buckthorn, and the dogwood. The white-beam is remarkable for the snowy aspect of its foliage when stirred by the wind; the bag-nut for its chandeliers of pinky white in May, followed in autumn by round bags containing each a brilliantly-polished brown bead; the bird-cherry, Prunus Padus, completely covers itself with racemes of white flowers exhaling the odour of honey. Then there are the innumerable smaller kinds of willow and sallow; the holly, covered in winter with those glorious scarlet bracelets; and the hawthorn or 66 May," so deservedly famed in verse. The sloe, though rarely of the dimensions of a tree, has likewise many claims upon our interest. So has the berbery; so has the sweet-gale; so have those very curious trees-the sea-buckthorn and the juniper; so have the hazel, the hornbeam, the arbutus, and the wayfaring-tree. After those which stand independently, there are whole tribes of roses and brambles, the sweet-briar, the honeysuckle, and the clematis, and longer-living, and farther reaching, and greener than any, the incomparable old ivy of the ruin and the aged tree. Another set, of still smaller dimensions, attracts us in the wild currants, the privet, and the whortle-berry; here, too, we find the broom and prickly furze, with their myriads of golden butterflies. In truth there is no absolute stopping-place. Trees are the maximum; between their majesty and the minimum there is so beautiful a descending scale of size and stature, that unless an arbitrary line be drawn, we cannot stop till we are abreast of the merest herb. Technically, even the wild thyme, that makes those lovely purple knolls on the grassy common, is a shrub," for the branches, though only of the thickness of a needle, are woody and permanent, and the leaves endure through the winter. LEO. THE THREE PHASES OF THE REFORMATION. It is now time to recur to the remedy in reference to the second point, wherein lay the strength and weakness of the Reformation,-the sacred Scriptures. We have seen that the reformers blew hot and cold at the same time in dealing with the Bible; for while asserting its all-sufficiency and supremacy in matters of faith, they virtually denied |