How Trees Spend the Winter 



wood. The sap that oozes out of the pith and heart wood was 

 frozen, and dripped not at all until it was brought indoors. 



What is meant by the freezing of fruit buds in winter, by 

 which the peach crop is so often lost in Northern States? When 

 spring opens, the warmth of the air wakes the sleeping buds. It 

 thaws the ice in the intercellular spaces, and the cells are quick 

 to absorb the water they gave up when winter approached. 

 The thawing of the ground surrounds the roots with moisture. 

 Sap rises and flows into the utmost twig. Warm days in January 

 or February are able to deceive the tree to this extent. The 

 sudden change back to winter again catches them. The plump 

 cells are ruptured and killed by the "frost bite." 



It is a bad plan to plant a tender kind of tree on the south 

 side of a house or a wall. The direct and the reflected warmth of 

 the sun forces its buds out too soon, and the late frosts cut them 

 off. There is rarely a good yield on a tree so situated. 



There is no miracle like "the burst of spring." Who has 

 watched a tree by the window as its twigs began to shine in 

 early March, and the buds to swell and show edges of green as 

 their scales lengthened? Then the little shoot struggled out, 

 casting off the hindering scales with the scandalous ingratitude 

 characteristic of infancy. Feeble and very appealing are the limp 

 baby leaves on the shoot, as tender and pale green as asparagus 

 tips. But all that store of rich nutritive material is backing the 

 enterprise. The palms are lifted into the air; they broaden and 

 take on the texture of the perfect, mature leaf. Scarcely a day 

 is required to outgrow the hesitation and inexperience of youth. 

 The tree stands decked in its canopy of leaves, every one of which 

 is ready and eager to assume the responsibilities it faces. The 

 season of starch making has opened. 



Cut some twigs of convenient trees in winter. Let them be 

 good ones, with vigorous buds, and have them at least two feet 

 long. You may test this statement 1 have made about the storing 

 of food in the twigs, and the one about the unfolding of the leafy 

 shoots. Get a number of them from the orchard — samples from 

 cherry, plum and apple trees; from maple and elm and any 

 other familiar tree. Put them in jars of water and set them where 

 they get the sun on a convenient window shelf. Give them 

 plenty of water, and do not crowd them. It is not necessary to 

 change the water, but cutting the ends slanting and under water 



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