to larger and
finer cherries in consequence. The advantage of thinning is recognized
in the case of all our fruits, and is indeed, the reason for pruning.
The vine-grower knows well the truth of the saying that, "You should
get your enemy to thin your grapes," and I would sacrifice many
cherries for a few of these beautiful birds in my garden, for man does
not live by bread alone.

One of the old couplets, of which our forefathers were so fond, runs:

"A cherry year is a merry year,
And a plum year is a dumb year."

I have seen the explanation suggested that cherries being particularly
wholesome contributed to the happiness of mankind, but that the less
salubrious plum tended to depression of health and spirits. There is,
however, a small black cherry still grown in this and other parts of
Hampshire and Surrey called the "Merry," from the French _merise_, and
it was natural that when cherries were abundant the merry would also
be plentiful. The word "dumb" is an archaic synonym for "damson," and
the same rule would apply between it and the plum, as with the cherry
and the merry. My own small place here, in the New Forest, has been
known for centuries as "the Merry Gardens," and no doubt they were
once grown here, as at other places in the south of England, called
Merry Hills, Merry Fields, and Merry Orchards. Even now as I write, on
May Day, the buds on the wild cherries in my hedges are showing the
white bloom just ready to appear, and in a few days, these trees will
be spangled with their little bright stars. I imagine that they are no
very distant relation of the old merry-trees that once flourished
here.

CHAPTER XVI.

TREES: ELM--OAK--BEECH--WILLOW--SCOTS-FIR.

"O flourish, hidden deep in fern,
Old oak, I love thee well;
A thousand thanks for what I learn
And what remains to tell."
--_The Talking Oak_.

Keats tells us that

"The trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self,"

and had he included the trees around a dwelling-house, the epigram
would have been equally applicable. Sometimes, of course, it becomes
absolutely necessary to cut down an ancient tree that from its
proximity to one's home has become a part of the home itself, but it
is a matter for the gravest consideration, for one cannot foresee the
result, and to a person who has lived long with a noble tree a