CHAPTER VIII. 



THE AWAKENING OF THE TREES. 



Trees appeal to many people who take little notice of smaller 

 plants, and teachers will do well to foster this natural interest. As 

 has been already suggested in Chapters III and V, different types of 

 trees, at least one evergreen and one deciduous, should be under con- 

 tinuous observation, so that their behavior at different seasons can be 

 noted. A study of the habits and physiology of trees, especially of 

 their relation to climate, is surely better suited to school work in our 

 climate than the detailed study of naked twigs frequently pursued 

 where trees are leafless or dormant half of the school year. Of course 

 the position of buds and their plan of development, is most easily 

 observed on leafless trees. It may be well to note that buds are 

 situated where it is most convenient to distribute food to them, either 

 terminally or in the axils of leaves where the conductive tissue 

 branches off from main stem to leaf stem. Naturally there will be 

 room for the development of only a limited number of buds each 

 year, but when regularly developed shoots are destroyed, it is interest- 

 ing to watch the activity of dormant buds ; indeed, the promptness 

 of trees to rally from accident or mutilation is little short of marvel- 

 ous. The topping of shade trees furnishes an instructive illustration ; 

 nature at once covers the cut surface with new tissue from which arise 

 numerous buds, and soon the tree is provided with a new and denser 

 crown. We frequently see a close, and somewhat circular group of 

 sycamores that have originally arisen as suckers from the stump or 

 roots when the parent stem has been cut down. 



Distinguishing between trees that branch excurrently and decur- 

 rently,. seems to me fruitless work for children, especially as cultivated 

 trees are rarely allowed to develop naturally ; but hardly too much 

 stress can be placed on the different characteristics of the trees 

 adapted to a dry climate, and those which with us can survive only 

 near streams or under irrigation. Of course, in our dry atmosphere, 



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