OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES 



ular habits of individual specimens and of for- 

 est growths might, I think, be safely and prof- 

 itably noted as lending additional interest to 

 them, and creating a sort of fellowship with 

 the trees. Every forester knows that oaks 

 and maples of the same species have yet idio- 

 syncrasies of their own — one blooming a full 

 fortnight before its neighbor, and another tak- 

 ing a tawny hue, while its companion is still 

 in full array of green. In the garden of the 

 Tuileries there is a chestnut which enjoys the 

 traditional repute of showing leaflets upon the 

 twentieth of March (hence called Vingt de 

 Mars), and the venerable old tree, well known 

 to every frequenter of the garden, has come to 

 have a character of sanctity by reason of this 

 early welcome of the spring. In a field within 

 sight of my own door, there is a sugar-maple 

 which, by some fault of the planting, or some 

 inherent defect in the tree, has made little or no 

 growth these last six years, and which every 

 August— a full month before the earliest of 

 its companions — takes on a hectic flush of 

 color, which it carries, with the buoyancy of a 

 consumptive, all through the autumn. This 

 accident of coloring gives an individuality and 

 interest to the tree which distinguishes it from 

 all its stalwart and thrifty fellows. 



216 



