Around the " Pond " — First Excursion 



fair," is the Juno. If the old mythological fate were 

 ever to overtake me, and I were to be imprisoned in a 

 tree, I should pray that it might be a quercus — rugged, 

 venerable, and solitary, with shattered but defiant top, 

 its whole figure angularly beautiful, a forest monarch, 

 offspring of storm and sunshine, sylvan type of pictu- 

 resque endurance, 



" Jove's own tree 

 That holds the woods in awful sovereignty," 



and no less dominant amid the refinement of lawn and 

 park, sternly majestic everywhere. 



Its longevity befits the toughness of its fibre and un- 

 conquerable vigor : 



" He has stood for a thousand years, 

 Has stood and frown'd 

 On the trees around, 

 Like a king among his peers." 



The oak's vigor is well illustrated by Robert Douglas 

 where he says, '' The acorn is the only seed I can think 

 of which is left by nature to take care of itself. It ma- 

 tures without protection, falls heavily and helplessly to 

 the ground to be eaten and trodden on by animals, yet 

 the few which escape and those which are trodden under 

 are well able to compete in the race for life. While the 

 elm and maple seeds are drying up on the surface, hick- 

 ories and walnuts waiting to be cracked, the acorn is at 

 work with its coat off. It drives its tap root into the 

 earth in spite of grass and brush and litter. No matter 

 if it is so shaded by forest trees that the sun cannot pen- 

 etrate, it will manage to make a short stem and a few 



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