STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 107 



We know now that every ring by which we counted the age of 

 the logs in the wood pile we did not love were once like the tlesliy 

 "sliver" of the pine and next to the bark. We know that year 

 after year a layer is added, and that the little tree grows too big 

 for its clothes. Year after year it stretches its bark and bursts it, 

 but mends it before it is broken so that beneath the rough and out- 

 grown outer bark there is a new and living layer to warm and pro- 

 tect it from the storms. 



When we were boys we thought that the trunk stretches itself up 

 and pushed its limbs up with it, but we have learned since then 

 that a tree grows tall only at the top. The branching also is a 

 subject full of interest to the child, and he can begin plant study 

 with the apple tree at home if he chooses. The trunk divides and 

 sub-divides and loses itself in big limbs and these divide still more 

 and lose themselves in smaller branches and twigs. It is bare now 

 and its naked branches rattle in the wind and ice clings to them ; 

 the tree is frozen in sleep, but spring will awaken it, and it will 

 clothe itself again with leaves. Beautiful as the leaves are they 

 were not born simply to ornament the tree, they are there to work 

 and they do work. If the tree has thousands of mouths at its 

 roots it has millions in its leaves and not only mouths but nostrils 

 also and it eats and breathes for the tree. The blade of green, 

 ribbed and veined and filled with pores is a laboratory also for 

 transforming the air and sunlight into wood ; and its stem and ribs 

 and veins the canals through which it sends its products to the 

 tree. Wonderful as it seems it is nevertheless true that the bulk 

 of the wood comes through the leaves ; so the boards and timber 

 of our houses are largely made of air, and even an air castle may 

 be a very substantial dwelling place, after all. 



Now let us look at our branch again. A horse chestnut branch 

 would be better, for you would see more plainly the scar left by 

 •each fallen leaf. 



Beyond the scar you see a little bud which the leaf stem nurtured 

 through the summer and which helped the leaf off to its rest on the 

 ground when its work was finished in the fall ; and then the bud 

 began to take care of itself. 



Most of the buds on our apple branch are long and tapering at 

 the end but some are short and blunt, and if you watch them next 

 spring as they swell and burst the horny scales that cover them, 

 you will see flowers unfold from the blunt ones and branches and 

 leaves from the slim ones ; and you will find that the little bud at 



