On the 26th of December 1833, the forty-fifth anniversary of the settlement of Cincinnati was celebrated by natives of Ohio by what was called a Buckeye dinner. On that occasion the late Dr. Daniel Drake, of Cincinnati gave a most humorous and ingenious description of the Buckeye tree.
We extract from his explanation as follows:
"The tree which you have toasted Mr. President, has the distinction of being one of a family of plants, but a few species of which exist on earth.--They constitute the genus AEsculus of botanists, which belongs to the class Heptandria. Now the latter is Greek phrase; signifies seven men; and there happens to be exactly seven species of the genus--thus they constitute the seven wise men of the woods, in proof of which I may say that there is not another family of plants on the whole earth that possesses these talismanic attributes of wisdom. But this is not all. Of the seven species, our emblem-tree was discovered last--it is the youngest of the family--the seventh son--and who does not know the manifold virtues of a seventh son!
Neither Europe nor Africa has a single native species of AEsculus Hippocastanam, or Horse-chestnut. Nearly three hundred years since, a minister of one of the courts of western Europe to that of Russia, found this tree growing in Moscow, whither it had been brought from Siberia. He was struck with its beauty, and naturalized it in his own country. It spread with astonishing rapidity over that part of the continent, and crossing the channel, became one of the favorite shade trees of our English ancestors.
Every native in the valley of the Ohio and of the Miami should feel proud of the appellation, which from the infancy of our settlements, has been conferred upon him, for the Buckeye has many qualities which may be regarded as typical of a noble character.
It is not merely a native of the west, but peculiar to it; has received from the botanist the specific name of Ohioensis, and is the only tree of our whole forest, that does not grow elsewhere. What other tree could be so fit an emblem of our native population?
In all our woods there is no tree so hard to kill as the Buckeye. The deepest girdling will not deaden it, and even after it is cut down, and worked up into the side of a cabin, it will send out young branches--denoting to all the world that Buckeyes are not easily conquered, and could with difficulty be destroyed.
The Buckeye has generally been condemned as unfit for fuel but its very incombustibility has been found an advantage; for no tree of the forest is equally valuable for "back logs," which are the sine qua non of every good cabin fire. Thus treated, it may be finally, though slowly, burned; when another of its virtues appears, as no other tree of our woods affords so great a quantity of alkali; thus there is piquancy in its very ashes!
The bark of our emblem-plant has some striking properties. Under a proper method of preparation and use, it is said to be efficacious in the cure of ague and fever; but unskillfully employed, it proves a violent emetic which indicates that he who tampers with a Buckeye, will not do it with impunity.
Who has not looked with admiration on the fine foilage of the Buckeye in early spring, while the more sluggish tenants of the forest remain torpid in their winter quarters; and what tree in all our wild woods bears a flower which can be compared with that of our favorite? We may fearlessly challenge for it the closest comparison. Its early putting forth and the beauty of its leaves and blossoms, are appropriate types of our native population, whose rapid and beautiful development will not be denied by those whom I now address, nor disproved by reference to their character.
Finally, the Buckeye derived its name from the resemblance of its nut to the eye of the buck, the finest organ of our noblest wild animal; while the name itself is composed of a Welsh and a Saxton word, belonging, therefore, to the oldest portions of our vernacular tongue, and connecting us with the primitive stocks, of which our fathers were but scions planted in the New World."
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