THE WOODS. 161 



for his mauls and axes, fence rails, stakes, posts, poles 

 for odd uses generally, beech leaves for his bed ticks, 

 nuts and bright leaves in autumn, and wild flowers 

 almost all the year round. Indeed, a farm without a 

 wood lot is deprived of much that makes country life 

 attractive and possible. 



The most majestic living organism is a tree. Did 

 you ever think how large a tree is? We seldom think 

 of them as being very large; and yet the wood con- 

 tained in the trunk and branches of a single beech or 

 maple takes up vastly more space than does the body 

 of a man, and their green leaves, if placed side by side, 

 would occupy half an acre. It has been estimated that 

 a good-sized maple with thick tops will put forth over 

 four hundred thousand leaves in a single year. Yet we 

 do not fear the trees, but we enjoy their shade and 

 color in their lives, gather their fruit in its season, and, 

 when they die, or even before, little man, with his 

 powerful mind, saws and chops them up for fuel and 

 lumber, and sends them into all parts of the world and 

 for all purposes. 



A tree, too, is always graceful. Even when some 

 of its branches are stripped off or broken, it will not 

 submit to such a deformity, but will send out new 

 shoots to take their place, which will soon grow and 

 thrive in towering masses of green or depend in droop- 

 ing, delicate sprays, thus even in its misfortune shaping 

 to itself again a characteristic symmetry of form. So 

 each one also, and especially when in leaf, displays 

 its natural qualities of contour, from the tented, pagoda- 

 like appearance of the horse-chestnuts on the lawn to 

 the plume-like, feathery ferns of the elms. 



