CHAPTER I. 



A COMPARISON OF THE CHARACTERISTICS OF TREES. 



" I care not how men trace their ancestry, 

 To Ape or Adam ; let them please their whim ; 

 But I in June am midway to believe 

 A Tree among my far progenitors ; 

 Such sympathy is mine with all the race, 

 Such mutual recognition vaguely sweet 

 There is between us. Surely there are times 

 When they consent to own me of their kin, 

 And condescend to me, and call me cousin, 

 Murmuring faint lullabies of eldest time 

 Forgotten, and yet dumbly felt with thrills 

 Moving the lips, though fruitless of the words." 



"^ ^ "THEN one reflects that among all the millions of 

 \ /\ / human beings that have existed no two have been 

 \ V alike, and that all their illimitable varieties of ex- 

 pression are produced by the varied combinations of 

 only half a dozen features, within a space of six inches by eight, it 

 ought not to be difficult to conceive the endless diversity of char- 

 acter that may be exhibited among trees, with their multitude of 

 features and forms, their oddities of bark, limb, and twig, their 

 infinitude of leaves and blossoms of all sizes, forms, and shades of 

 color, their towering sky outlines, and their ever-varying lights and 

 shadows. There are subtle expressions in trees, as in the human 

 face, that it is difficult to analyze or account for. A face, no one 

 feature of which is pleasing, often charms us by the expression of 

 an inward spirit which lights it. May we not claim for all living 

 nature, as our great poet Bryant suggests in the following lines, a 



