TREES 



I BELIEVE that our love of trees is a deeper and 

 later development than our love of flowers, we are 

 more mature in years when their impressive grandeur 

 is borne in upon us. The tiny child needs no per- 

 suasion or education to love flowers : its unbounded 

 delight in them is perfectly natural ; even the hungry 

 slum urchin, ragged and half-fed, will grab and tussle 

 for the discarded blooms that are consigned to the 

 dust bin, cherishing their crumpled beauty a trait 

 in child-life that has a deep and sacred significance. 



It is only when the hand of time has silvered 

 our locks and mellowed, but not dulled, our admira- 

 tion, that there springs up within us an attachment 

 to the trees we know. Some, maybe, that were young 

 when we were young, others that were old, very old 

 then, and still stand the same, breasting many a 

 boisterous storm we have seen them leaf and bud, 

 cast their coats a score and more of times, and 

 learned to know them and their ways ; learned to 



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