March '■ — Spindle- Tree. 7 9 



Early spring is not the season of the most brilliant 

 contrasts ; but they occur occasionally, and may be 

 briefly alluded to in passing. You have the viburnum, 

 for instance, which in the late winter is so splendid in 

 its innumerable berries, with their jewel -like transparent 

 red. In early spring a good many of these berries remain, 

 and though their splendor is rather dimmed and faded 

 by this time in reality, it seems to be revived by the 

 effect of contrast, for the fresh green leaves have sprouted 

 amongst them. Another little tree, whose foliage sprouts 

 about the same time, is the spindle-tree, or fusain, which 

 one can never see without thinking of its two very oppo- 

 site uses. The charcoal from it is, it appears, especially 

 approved for the manufacture of the powder used in can- 

 nons, whilst at the same time artists prefer it for char- 

 coal-drawing. Both these two things — cannon powder 

 and charcoal-drawing — have been immensely improved 

 of late years ; so war and art, barbarism and civilization, 

 go on together yet as they did in old Greece, in old 

 Rome, in the Europe of the Middle Ages, and in the 

 time of the great Renaissance. 



The mere precedence of flower before leaf, or leaf 

 before flower, is in itself quite sufficient to insure variety 

 in the early aspects of vegetation. It is illustrated by 

 many plants which might be paired together in this con- 

 nection as examples ; but it is enough to mention two of 

 the commonest and best known, the hawthorn and the 

 blackthorn. The leaves of the hawthorn will be all 

 sprouting over it abundantly and rapidly covering the 

 hedge with their fresh light-green, probably rather in- 



