NUT-BEARING TREES 



The true nut-eater 



light gray branches of a beech 

 thicket on a dry hillside on the 

 edge of my home city called at- 

 tention to their clean elegance 

 amid sordid and forbidding sur- 

 roundings, and it was with anger 

 which I dare call righteous that 

 I saw a hideous bill-board erected 

 along the hillside, to shut out the 

 always beautiful beeches from 

 sight as I frequently passed on 

 a trolley car ! I have carefully 

 avoided buying anything of the 

 merchants who have thus set up 

 their announcements where they 

 are an insult; and it might be 

 noted that these and other offen- 

 sive bill-boards are to others of 

 like mind a sort of reverse ad- 

 vertising — they tell us what not 

 to purchase. 



Years ago I chanced to be pres- 

 ent at a birth of beech leaves, up 

 along Paxton Creek. It was late 

 in the afternoon, and our reluc- 

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