CHAPTER VI. 
PERFECTION. 
THERE is something which inspires 
A ’ the lover of Nature with an in- 
expressible feeling of awe in the 
contemplation of the perfect form 
of a noble Tree. Yet it is by 
the gentlest of natural influences— 
“influences so gentle, and oftentimes so 
slow in their operation, as to be im- 
perceptible after any other than long 
periods of time—that such gigantic strength and 
such amazing stability have been built up and 
established, as we see embodied in many even of 
our woodland Trees. From the tender stage of 
its first completed year, when the stem contained, 
besides its pith, its incipient first cylinder of 
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