Trees of the Northern United States: Their Study, Description and DeterminationApgar, A. C. (Austin Craig)
Science
Trees of the Northern United States: Their Study, Description and Determination
Apgar, A. C. (Austin Craig)
Trees -- North America
After this work with Chapter III., and the careful reading of the whole
of Part I., the pupils can begin the description of trees, and, as the
botanical words are needed, search can be made for them under the proper
heads or in the Glossary.
The Keys are for the use of those who know nothing of scientific botany.
The advanced botanist may think them too artificial and easy; but let
him remember that this work was written for the average teacher who has
had no strictly scientific training. We can hardly expect that the great
majority of people will ever become scientific in any line, but it is
possible for nearly every one to become interested in and fully
acquainted with the trees of his neighborhood.
The attainment of such botanical knowledge by the plan given in this
volume will not only accomplish this useful purpose, but will do what is
worth far more to the student, _i.e._, teach him to employ his own
senses in the investigation of natural objects, and to use his own
powers of language in their description.
With hardly an exception, the illustrations in the work are taken from
original drawings from nature by the author. A few of the scales of
pine-cones were copied from London's "Encyclopædia of Trees"; some of
the Retinospora cones were taken from the "Gardener's Chronicle"; and
three of the illustrations in Part I. are from Professor Gray's works.
The size of the illustration as compared with the specimen of plant is
indicated by a fraction near it; ¼ indicates that the drawing is one
fourth as long as the original, 1/1 that it is natural size, etc. The
notching of the margin is reduced to the same extent; so a margin which
in the engraving looks about entire, might in the leaf be quite
distinctly serrate. The only cases in which the scale is not given are
in the cross-sections of the leaves among the figures of coniferous
plants. These are uniformly three times the natural size, except the
section of Araucaria imbricata, which is not increased in scale.
The author has drawn from every available source of information, and in
the description of many of the species no attempt whatever has been made
to change the excellent wording of such authors as Gray, Loudon, etc.
The ground covered by the book is that of the wild and cultivated trees
found east of the Rocky Mountains, and north of the southern boundary of
Virginia and Missouri. It contains not only the native species, but all
those that are successfully cultivated in the whole region; thus
including all the species of Ontario, Quebec, etc., on the north, and
many species, both wild and cultivated, of the Southern States and the
Pacific coast. In fact, the work will be found to contain so large a
proportion of the trees of the Southern States as to make it very useful
in the schools of that section.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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