In North America, according to Franklin,[25] the Crees used to hang strips of buffalo flesh and pieces of cloth on their sacred tree; and in Nicaragua maize and beans were worshipped.  By the natives of Carolina the tea-plant was formerly held in veneration above all other plants, and indeed similar phases of superstition are very numerous.  Traces of tree-worship occur in Africa, and Sir John Lubbock[26] mentions the sacred groves of the Marghi—­a dense part of the forest surrounded with a ditch—­where in the most luxuriant and widest spreading tree their god, Zumbri, is worshipped.  In his valuable work on Ceylon, Sir J. Emerson Tennent gives some interesting details about the consecration of trees to different demons to insure their safety, and of the ceremonies performed by the kattadias or devil-priests.  It appears that whenever the assistance of a devil-dancer is required in extreme cases of sickness, various formalities are observed after the following fashion.  An altar is erected, profusely adorned with garlands and flowers, within sight of the dying man, who is ordered to touch and dedicate to the evil spirit the wild flowers, rice, and flesh laid upon it.

Traces of plant-worship are still found in Europe.  Before sunrise on Good Friday the Bohemians are in the habit of going into their gardens, and after falling on their knees before a tree, to say, “I pray, O green tree, that God may make thee good,” a formula which Mr. Ralston[27] considers has probably been altered under the influence of Christianity “from a direct prayer to the tree to a prayer for it.”  At night they run about the garden exclaiming, “Bud, O trees, bud! or I will flog you.”  On the following day they shake the trees, and clank their keys, while the church bells are ringing, under the impression that the more noise they make the more fruit will they get.  Traces, too, of tree-worship, adds Mr. Ralston,[28] may be found in the song which the Russian girls sing as they go out into the woods to fetch the birch tree at Whitsuntide, and to gather flowers for wreaths and garlands: 

  “Rejoice not, oaks;
  Rejoice not, green oaks. 
  Not to you go the maidens;
  Not to you do they bring pies,
  Cakes, omelettes. 
  So, so, Semik and Troitsa [Trinity]! 
  Rejoice, birch trees, rejoice, green ones! 
  To you go the maidens! 
  To you they bring pies,
  Cakes, omelettes.”

The eatables here mentioned probably refer to the sacrifices offered in olden days to the birch—­the tree of the spring.  With this practice we may compare one long observed in our own country, and known as “wassailing.”  At certain seasons it has long been customary in Devonshire for the farmer, on the eve of Twelfth-day, to go into the orchard after supper with a large milk pail of cider with roasted apples pressed into it.  Out of this each person in the company takes what is called a clome—­i.e., earthenware cup—­full of liquor, and standing under the more fruitful apple trees, address them in these words: