BROWSING AND NIBBLING. IOI 
would have been too rank and Save for his 
endurance. 
The gums and resins of our aed are few. 
The sweet-gum, or liquid amber, is the only 
genuinely fine morsel of the sort to be found 
within the boundaries of the United States. 
It is a clear amber fluid (flowing from any cut 
or wound in the tree), which soon hardens into 
a stiff, translucent yellow wax, possessing a 
pleasing aromatic taste and odor, strangely 
fascinating. One does not care to eat it; but, 
once a lump of it goes into one’s mouth, one 
chews it until one’s jaws are tired. I remem- 
ber, when I was a very little child, going to a 
backwoods school in Missouri, where all ihe 
pupils, both great and small, would chew 
liquid amber from morning till night; the 
teacher chewed tobacco. 
Browsing and nibbling has led me to taste 
the inner bark of nearly every kind of tree 
growing in American woods. ‘The hickory 
tree hasa sap almost as sweet as that of the 
maple, but it mingles with the sweet a pun- 
gency and a slightly acrid element of taste at 
once pleasing and repellent to the pampered 
tongue. The oaks have much tannin in their 
bark, the astringency of which draws one’s 
lips like green persimmons; but the very 
innermost part, next the wood, is slightly 
mucilaginous and faintly sweet. Speaking of 
persimmons—after a few sharp frosts this 
wild fruit becomes mellow and rich, but to the 
last retains a certain drawing quality, a trace 
of that astringency already mentioned, which 
keeps it from being a favorite, save with the 
opossums. 
There is no other woodland induence, how. 
