i66 TREES IIS^ NATURE, MYTH & ART 



point of subdivision is reached. Thus the girth 

 is decreased not gradually but by stages. The 

 final contrast between the stalwart, simple 

 strength of the lower and central part of the 

 tree, and the complex lightness of the higher 

 and outward parts of it, is one main feature of 

 the tree's beauty. 



Ruskin well describes the increase of light- 

 ness through subdivision, by reference to an 

 example of the tree-drawing of J. D. Harding. 

 **Take the trunk of the largest stone pine, 

 plate 25 in The Park and the Forest. For 

 the first nine or ten feet from the ground it 

 does not loose one hair s-breadth of its diameter. 

 But the shoot broken off just under the crossing 

 part of the distant tree is followed by an instant 

 diminution of the trunk, perfectly appreciable 

 both by the eye and the compasses. Again, 

 the stem maintains undiminished thickness up 

 to the two shoots on the left, from the loss of 

 which it suffers again perceptibly. On the 

 right, immediately above, is the stump of a very 

 large bough, whose loss reduces the stem 

 suddenly to about two-thirds of what it was at 

 the root. Diminished again, less considerably, 

 by the minor branch close to the stump, it now 



