LEAF AND BRANCH 



271 



paid small attention to these canons of taste. 

 It puts its growths together at random quite 

 regardless of the part, but it is not so careless 

 about the total result. The mass is always har- 

 monious in its breadth. 



The great volume of foliage undoubtedly has 

 much to do with making the landscape in 

 America harmonious, in spite of abrupt con- 

 trasts and vivid hues. The country is really 

 exceptional in the extent of its timber-growths ; 

 and as for the rainbow foliage of September, 

 one never sees elsewhere such a display. The 

 vegetation of the tropics, which we vainly im- 

 agine corresponds to the brilliant plumage of 

 a parrot or a bird of paradise, is on the con- 

 trary a mass of dark summer-green the year 

 round ; and many of the lands in the tem- 

 perate zone show no great forest-color in the 

 autumn. The foliage of the Northern United 

 States and Canada has about it an incom- 

 parable richness, a vibrant sparkling quality 

 which one cannot but think peculiar to the coun- 

 try itself. The traveller returning from Europe 

 can feel a difference in the air and light as soon 

 as he enters New York Harbor, and it is per- 

 haps the air and the light that make possible 

 the intense hues of foliage. 



