RFADY FOR 'THE BURST OF SPRING" 



33* 



fill in themselves, and especially so in 

 that they prophesy of the charms of 

 spring. It takes but little fancy to see 

 the spring flowers in these bursting 

 buds, and to hear the songs of birds. 

 Buds tell us of youth and old age, for it 

 should not be forgotten that buds be- 

 long to autumn and winter even more 

 than to spring when they soon trans- 

 form into flowers and leafy branches. 

 When one considers their pent up 

 power and their possibilities for the fu- 

 ture, there is enough to cause a flood of 

 poetic ecstasy, and when one looks 

 backward a half century or more, a bud 

 may cause an unexpressed shriek of 

 joyous pain in the pathos of the long 

 ago. Only those far removed in time 

 and place from childhood's days in win- 

 ter woods with the woodchoppers, play- 

 ing with buds and twigs as a modern 

 child plays with costly toys, can ever 

 know that pathos. Alas ! How much 

 are you to be pitied if you know buds 

 only from the botanical or esthetic point 

 of view. O botanists, you are wrong 

 when you say these buds are pent up 

 only with leaves and flowers of the 

 plant. Probably you do not know that 

 they are condensed memories. 



But more important than this is the 

 brain of the bud. It thinks, or rather it 

 gives evidence of Thought. It is one of 



AT RIGHT: GUMMY BUDS OF HORSE-CHESTNUT ON SCULPTURED TWIGS. 

 BELOW: THE BEGINNING OF HIGH BLUEBERRY BROWSE. GOOD TO EAT! 



