120 TREES IN NATURE, MYTH & ART 



selves to feel as if the trees had feeling, we 

 pity them as we see their leaves drifting away 

 before the autumn winds ; and, when the last 

 leaves are gone, we can almost think of them 

 as shivering with cold, because their clothing 

 has been taken from them. If they could 

 know what we think, and could speak to us, 

 they would tell us that we are quite wrong. 

 They themselves make elaborate preparation 

 for getting rid of their leaves before winter; 

 and, ere wind or frost finally detaches the leaves, 

 all vital relation between them and the tree has 

 ceased. They would fall sooner or later did 

 neither wind nor frost remove them. That 

 these agencies would not affect them without 

 help from the tree itself we can learn from the 

 evergreens, the leaves of which survive the 

 roughest wind and hardest winter, and fall, 

 perhaps in spring or summer, when the tree 

 has no further use for them. A garden with 

 plenty of evergreens in it — my own is such an 

 one — requires plenty also of clearing up, at 

 other times than autumn, to get rid of holly, 

 ivy, yew and other fallen leaves. 



I have already confessed myself not to be 

 a botanist; and what follows I take ftom an 



