72 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FARM 
The trees have not changed, but our relations with them have 
become remote. Let us renew acquaintance with a few at 
least of those that are native to our soil. Let us go out and 
stand among them, and feel, as our ancestors felt, their vigor, 
their majestic stature and their venerable age. To the 
ancients they stood as symbols of strength, of longevity, and 
of peace. Our poets love to celebrate the grace of the birch, 
the beauty of the beech, the lofty bearing of the pine and the 
rugged strength of the oak. 
In winter, when the boughs are bare and stand out sharply 
against the background of the sky, the structural character- 
istics that best distin- 
guish tree species are 
most readily seen. The 
forking and the taper 
and the grouping of the 
branches, the size and 
Fic. 40. Diagram illustrating thecharacteristics stoutness and position 
of form in some common trees: @, Lombardy F 
poplar; 6, white birch; c, sugar maple; d, of the twigs, that are 
apple; ¢«, American elm. 
obscured by summer 
foliage, are now evident. By noting such characters as these 
we may learn to recognize the trees. The woodsman, who 
learns them unconsciously, knows them as wholes, and 
knows them without analysis by the complex of characters 
they present. But most of us will have to make their 
acquaintance by careful comparison of their characters 
separately. A few suggestions to that end here follow. 
There are a few deciduous trees that are instantly recogniz- 
able in winter by their color. Such are the white birch and 
the sycamore. The former is pure white on the trunk and 
larger branches: the latter is flecked with greenish white on 
the boughs, where the outer bark is shed in patches. The 
light satiny gray of the smooth beech trunks, and the mat 
gray of the rough white oak trunks, also help, although less 
