THE PERSONALITY OF TREES 



LOW many of us think of trees almost as we do of 

 the rocks and stones about us, as all but in- 

 animate objects, standing in the same relation 

 to our earth as does the furry covering of an animal 

 to its owner. The simile might be carried out more in 

 detail, the forests protecting the continents from drought 

 and flood, even as the coat of fur protects its owner from 

 extremes of heat and cold. 



When we come to consider the tree as a living individual, 

 a form of life contemporaneous with our own, and to realise 

 that it has its birth and death, its struggles for life and its 

 periods of peace and abundance, we will soon feel for it a 

 keener sympathy and interest and withal a veneration 

 greater than it has ever aroused in us before. 



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