like the leaves that come out of them. 

 Basswood's leaves are roundish; so are 

 the buds. Beech leaves and buds are 

 similarly pointed. 



This can be made a fascinating game 

 if you wish, beginning with the few twigs 

 you know and then adding others, until 

 you have worked up to as many as fifty. 

 You can have contests as to who can tell 

 rightly the names of most of the twigs. 



THE TREES themselves, by form or 

 color, are easily told from a dis- 

 tance. Pin oak and black gum 

 have shapes like the spruces, and this 

 shape shows best when the leaves are 

 off. Each has a spire-like top and the 

 lower limbs are drooped and spreading. 

 Yellow willow now gleams golden against 

 the snow, and towards spring the outer 

 twigs are almost startling in their color. 

 Sycamores have erratic branches which 

 seem to have changed their minds after 

 they started growing and gone off in 

 another direction. The branches of the 

 persimmon give the whole body of the 

 tree the shape of a cylinder, and their 

 shape, too, is always angular. This is 

 because two branches start and one fails 

 to develop so the other goes angling off 

 like the Indian swastika sign. The crown 

 of tulip-poplar is generally an oblong and 

 the ehn is likely to have a vase form. 



QUITE the most remarkable fact 

 about the trees is that they are far 

 from being as dead as they seem to 

 be in winter and even without leaves they 



are very much alive. The hardest work a 

 tree does is to produce flowers and 

 fruit and this is done by the witch- 

 hazel without a sign of a leaf to help 

 it. The red-bud, or Judas-tree, will cover 

 itself with bloom in the spring, but it has 

 warmth to help it, while the witch-hazel 

 is not even held back by the dead of 

 winter. We know, too, that it is still 

 pretty cold and snowy when our old 

 friend the sugar maple begins to nearly 

 burst with sap. 



The evergreens themselves look dead. 

 Cedars get rusty, scrub-pine and pitch- 

 pine are yellowish, and at least sickly- 

 looking, and the white pine grows ashy 

 and pale. They can be hurt by harsh 

 drying winds in winter, when the ground 

 is deeply frozen and their roots can not 

 keep up the supply of moisture given off 

 by the leaves. The very deadest-looking 

 trees of all are the larches, and tama- 

 racks, and cypresses, which we think of 

 as " evergreens," but which are quite 

 the barest and most naked in winter. By 

 contrast the fresh soft green of the new 

 larch needles is the " springliest " of all 

 the glad young colors of the spring time. 



LOOK for the winter fun in the woods, 

 and learn the trees' stories. Have 

 a winter picnic after a good skee-run, 

 if you live where snow is deep, try one 

 anyhow. We think they are more fun 

 than summer picnics, and there's more to 

 see; or else it is easier to see what 

 there is. 



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| CHARADES FOR CHILDREN | 



Here Are Some Puzzlers for the Children. Who Can Answer 



Them? Those Who Cannot May Read the Answer in 



February American Forestry 



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My first is a much needed part of a 1 



house 

 My second a squirrel eats but never j 



a mouse 

 Put these two together and then you f 



will find 

 That it is a wood of the very best kind. 



What is it? | 



My first is a part that a ship always needs | 

 My second the way you always plant g 



seeds 

 Now take these two and put them to- I 



gether 

 Then feed them some crumbs in 



this kind of weather. 

 What is it? 



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