Trees in Winter. 
By P. Q. Kexaan, LL.D. 
THE external aspect of our forested and scattered trees in winter is 
very familiar, but the mysteries of their interior being at that season 
are wrapped in obscurity, and demand for their elucidation all the 
analytical acumen and manipulative skill that can be bestowed upon 
the subject. Up till within the last few years neither out-door 
naturalists nor arm-chair faddists cared very much about the secret 
arcanum, the slumbrous hibernating activities, or rather passivities, of 
the denizens of the forest while enduring the sharp rigours of the 
deepest winter. They seemed only to sleep, a few appeared to be 
absolutely dead, their sprouting germinative activity was no more, and 
save for the mystical entanglement of the leafless boughs and the 
picturesque intricacy of the bud-studded twigs, there was no basis, 
no attractive feature anywhere apparent to call forth physiological or 
artistic interest. If the life of the forest was to be studied and 
adequately comprehended, it must be done, as was thought, when buds 
had burst and leaves had shot forth and flowers had blown into full 
expansion, when life was everywhere quivering and tingling in the 
running sap and swollen root and stirring leaf. Such was the im- 
pression ; but it was narrow and one-sided, it ignored the best half of 
the affair, it disdained the law that organised matter adapts itself to 
circumstances, to the wintry chill as well as to the sultry glare, that 
it operates by counterparts, so to speak, neither of which is complete, 
but each a supplementary constituent of the grand totality. 
The justification for the foregoing remarks will, I think, be found 
by any one who cares to make himself conversant with the history of 
scientific research anent the winter life of our trees. Previous to the 
year 1870 a few plant analysts and botanical chemists had investigated 
various parts and organs such as barks, buds, etc., gathered during the 
Winter season; but at all events, in 1871 Richard observed that in the 
month of February there was a deficiency of starch in certain twigs of 
willow, linden, and birch, which cases, however, he considered to be 
mere exceptions to the law broached by Mohl, founded by Hartig and 
Sachs, and generally held true at the time, viz. that the reserve starch 
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