AUTUMN LEAVES 215 



and colour the woods and hedgerows with large 

 masses of pale gold and the richest russet red. The 

 hedges themselves do not show much colour, unless 

 they are old ; then they are coloured with the spindle- 

 tree, the black berries of the privet, and especially the 

 maple. Some old hedges are now composed entirely of 

 maple, and are very beautiful in their autumnal tints ; 

 yet it is quite certain that the maple was never planted 

 as a hedge-plant, and it has often been a puzzle to me 

 how it could have established itself so as to have 

 strangled all the original plants. I think I have found 

 the explanation in Evelyn's Sylva, a book now, I be- 

 lieve, very little read, but in Sir Walter Scott's opinion 

 it should be ' still the manual of British planters, and 

 the author's life, manners, and principles as illustrated 

 in his memoirs ought equally to be the manual of 

 English gentlemen' (Kenilworlh). He says that the 

 maple ' is observed to be of noxious influence to sub- 

 nascent plants of other kinds, by reason of a clammy 

 dew which it sheds upon them.' This clammy dew 

 gives the maple a great advantage in the struggle for 

 existence, and we get the benefit of it in the autumnal 

 beauties of our old hedges filled with maple. 



But I must leave the woods and hedgerows for the 

 garden. The late Miss Marianne North had seen trees 

 in all parts of the world, and with an artist's eye, and 



