THE BUDS AND BLOSSOM OF TREES 



" A belt of straw and ivy buds 

 With coral clasps and amber studs." 



THOSE who live among the woodlands maintain that 

 to know the beauty of trees they should be watched 

 from the first day of the New Year. To wait till the 

 young leaves clothe the branches is to miss half the 

 early graces of the woods ; for the trees, like the sun- 

 burnt maidens of the Southern Sea, wear ornament 

 before drapery, and lightly wreathe their limbs with 

 beads and coral stars and studs, little coquettish jewels, 

 like shells and flowers, and, like them, often thrown 

 away before the day is done, or exchanged for orna- 

 ment more lasting and complete. 



Nothing in the full foliage of summer is more 

 beautiful than the early buds and blossom of trees ; 

 yet no " flower of the field " is more often doomed to 

 blush unseen. The gaze, which is at once bent down 

 towards the crocus or the primrose, is seldom raised to 

 the crimson blossoms which now cover the tops of the 

 elms like drops of ruby rain, or to the pendent blos- 

 soms of the poplars, the little golden brushes on the 



