FIR-WOODS AND HEATHER 



ABOUT the time when the fields grow bronzed and the woods 

 loose their midsummer freshness, a springlike brilliance 

 matures in the tracts of heather and fir-woods which are 

 common on sandy and gravelly soils. Though the evergreen 

 firs keep this type of scenery gay and cheerful in winter, it 

 makes singularly little response to the quickening influences 

 of the normal spring. April and May bring little change to 

 the firs and the heather ; the primrose and the violet and all 

 the best-known spring flowers avoid them, and even in early 

 June these landscapes are shabby and inanimate. Then, as 

 June increases into July, there is a wonderful change. Like 

 a dammed-up stream the withheld forces of nature burst 

 forth with multiplied power. Every pine bough stands 

 tipped with a new tassel of lustrous green, and this green 

 contrasts with the brilliant purple of the sheeted heather. 

 Both the green and the purple are colours charged with a 

 singular intensity ; if the music of a shepherd's flute seems to 

 breathe in the colours of spring willows and April cuckoo- 

 flowers, the firs and heather blow a trumpet-blast. And yet 

 they have the unstaled freshness of true spring growths ; 



