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The Hawthorn

Cratoegus oxyacantha.

IF the "milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale" had, as a literary subject, been "unattempted yet in prose or rhyme," the temptation would at this moment be too strong to be resisted. But turn to the books, dear reader, and see that whoever could say or sing something in its praise has made the most of his advantage. The history of the thorn has in consequence grown to vast proportions. We may therefore devote the small space at our disposal to a new essay on the place of the thorn in the garden; and we begin by saying that the double variety here figured represents a very important and splendid section of thorns that, in the most proper sense of the term, may be described as pictorial and garden trees.

It may be said of the thorns that they are more accommodating than any equally handsome class of hardy deciduous trees. Go to Lincoln's Inn Fields in June, and there you shall see, flowering freely, a fine collection of varieties of Cratoegus oxyacantha in a most thriving state in the very heart of smoky London, where earth and air have been poisoned by coal-smoke for centuries. Go to Troutbeck in July, and walk up the Vale to Kirkstone Pass, and you may see thousands of hawthorns blooming gaily, and you may note by the herbage and the colour of the soil that they are all located on a basis of starvation, where oaks and elms would no more grow than they would on a cheeseplate. And you may go to Cobham Park, and see huge "creeping" thorns thriving in a good soil that produces the finest timber; and after this, wherever you meet with thorns, you will probably note that they are almost careless of conditions, as though endowed with a special power of adapting themselves to any circumstances short of being made into faggots and put upon the fire. And they adapt themselves to that fairly well, for thornwood is capital fuel, but the adaptation is of quite a temporary nature.

The inexperienced observer who notes the immense difference between the "hawthorn in the dale" and the double-flowered tree of the garden will be disposed to regard them as distinct species, for indeed the distance in time as well as in appearance from one to the other is great. Nevertheless, the nature of the transition may be studied on the hills and in the woods, for there will be found among the wild thorns examples varying in the colours of their flowers from the purest white to several shades of blush, flesh, and rosy pink; and the scientific observer will readily and properly conclude that by systematic selection and raising plants from seed many fine varieties might soon be obtained, even if our present grand group were obliterated. We have noted many interesting "sports" on our own pink and scarlet thorns that only needed to be "fixed," by grafting and other modes that are commonly pursued, to prove useful additions to the lists of established kinds. In selecting thorns for the garden it will be well to ensure a goodly proportion of the single scarlet and pink varieties, for these make a double display, their red berries being fully as ornamental in autumn as their beautiful flowers are in the early summer. Moreover, where there are plenty of haws there will usually be plenty of birds, and the glorious song of the thrush is as much to be desired in a garden as any of its other delights. Of the splendour of the double varieties there can be no question at all, but they produce no berries, and the individual flowers are, in our opinion, far less beautiful than the single kinds. But tastes differ; and on that point we shall say no more, as we shall find matters of fact enough to fill out our pages.