1895.] ESSAYS. 67 



pavements has little that is ideal about it ; most of us would choose 

 a country road instead. But if we have eyes to see, there is beauty 

 and ever-varying interest over our heads ; for few of our thorough- 

 fares are destitute of trees. Pleasant Street, for example, has little 

 to recommend it but its trees. I don't believe a stranger would be 

 greatly impressed by its width or its architectural beauty ; but looking 

 up the street toward the west, its vista of arching elms, especially if 

 there is a background of sunset sky, is one of the loveliest sights our 

 city can show. What a barren waste Front Street would be if it 

 were not for the fine trees that have been preserved on the Common ; 

 and what an irreparable loss Main Street suffered when its splendid 

 old elms had to go ! To a real lover of trees they are equally beauti- 

 ful and interesting at all seasons of the year, and we do not properly 

 know them unless we can recognize them as quickly and as easily in 

 winter as in spring or summer. On some accounts winter is the most 

 favorable time to observe them, for then the distinctive habit of each, 

 which is disguised by the foliage in summer, may be seen at a glance ; 

 the bark is more beautiful and more clearly shown, the character of 

 the spray, the markings on the twigs, the size and position of the 

 buds, are all features by which we are enabled to distinguish the 

 different species as readily as we do when they are clothed in their 

 summer attire. Spring, the season of unfolding buds, is a very busy 

 time for the tree-lover; from the blossoming of the white maple, the 

 last of March, to the flowering of the chestnut, the last of June, he 

 must be on the alert, or some beautiful but transitory stage in the 

 development of leaf or flower in some one of his favorites will 

 have escaped him. What has been called the " misty season '' of the 

 trees, when the unfolding leaves gives them the appearance at a 

 little distance of being enveloped in a soft haze, is a very short but 

 very precious time. We appreciate, in some measure, the gorgeous 

 spectacle presented by our trees in the fall ; but how many of us 

 know that the new leaves of spring are colored as beautifully, and in 

 many cases as brilliantly, as those of autumn ? Most of us have eyes 

 for the blossoms of the red maple covering the bare twigs like coral ; 

 but we are blind to that infinitely prettier sight, a rock maple in full 

 bloom. We look with approval on a horse-chestnut tree decked out 

 with its showy flowers, but the blossoms of the oak are entirely 

 unnoticed by us. The opening leaf-buds of the hickory, the half- 

 grown leaves of the oak, the flowers of the birch, — all these and 

 many other beauties are displayed for the most part before unseeing 

 eyes. Anything that succeeds in awakening an interest in the trees is 



