NATURE'S CALENDAR .47 



some reason nature has arranged that November 20 



trees shall have an annual new set of 

 leaves, just as animals have an annual 

 (or semi-annual) suit of new fur; she re- 

 places the old clothes as rapidly as pos- 

 sible. Old leaves fall, therefore, because 

 their work is done, and they are pushed 

 ofT by the growing buds slowly gettmg 

 ready to take up the work of the next 

 season. The process of severing is differ- 

 ent in different trees ; but this the reader 

 may easily study for himself by examining 

 the ends of leaf stalks and the places 

 whence they drop, which are not, as he 

 will notice, wounds at all. 



Thus the autumnal falling of a leaf is 

 not a matter for tears and doleful poems, 

 but for hope and rejoicing, since it tells of 

 another birth and exhibits how alive and 

 energetic is the tree. Really, therefore, 

 the beginning of the tree year is now, 

 rather than in spring ; for when the 

 vernal warmth arrives it finds the trees 

 well started and ready to take advantage 

 of the first "growing weather." 



Many flowers remain in bloom far mto 

 this month — mainly golden-rods, asters, 

 and other of the coarser composites, but 

 one belongs conspicuously to this month — 

 •the witch-hazel bloom — and botanists are 

 not agreed whether to call this the latest 

 flower of this year, or the earliest of the 

 next. The leaves of the bush fall early, . 

 and it is most curious to see this tough, 

 angular, ugly skeleton of a shrub studded 



November 21 



