n6 ARBOR DAY 



sweet-singing bobolink, singing, as a Roman-candle 

 fizzes, showers of sparkling notes. If you stand at 

 noon under the tree, you are in a very beehive. 

 The tree is musical. The blossoms seem, for a 

 wonder, to have a voice. The odor is not a rank 

 atmosphere of sweet. Like the cups from which 

 it is poured, it is delicate and sweet. You feel 

 as if there were a timidity in it, that asked 

 your sympathy, and yielded to solicitation. You 

 do not take it whether you will or not, but, 

 though it is abundant, you follow it rather 

 than find it. Is not this gentle reserve, that yields 

 to real admiration, but hovers aloof from coarse 

 or cold indifference, a beautiful trait in woman or 

 apple-tree ? 



But was there ever such a spring? Did orchards 

 ever before praise God with such choral colors? 

 The whole landscape is aglow with orchard radiance. 

 The hillsides, the valleys, the fields, are full of 

 blossoming trees. The pear and cherry have shed 

 their blossoms. The ground is white as snow with 

 their flakes. Let other trees boast their superiority 

 in other months. But in the month of May, the very 

 flower-month of the year, the crown and glory of all 

 is the apple-tree. 



Therefore, in my calendar, hereafter, I do ordain 

 that the name of this month be changed. Instead 

 of May, let it henceforth be called in my kingdom, 

 "The Month of the Apple Blossoms." 



