224 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FARM 
not as individuals, but as masses, with their architecture 
hidden, and their foliage piled in shocks of green, full of 
lights and shadows. And on the far horizon they are still 
in our view, spread out in innumerable companies in a 
long thin line where overspread with pale haze. 
The well-grown clump of trees shows us, from the out- 
side, only its leaves, with just enough of glimpses of support- 
ing framework to suggest stability. The leaves are all on 
the outside, spread out broadly to the sun. We put our 
head through the leafy cover to the inside and look up—and 
itis like looking into an attic, seeing beams and rafters in- 
stead of familiar roofs. Inside all is gray bare boughs 
forking, and forking again, and stretching up to and sup- 
porting the overshadowing leaf-cover. We examine the 
outside carefully, and we see that all the leaves are mutually 
adjusted to get the maximum benefit from the light. The 
removal of a single leaf alters and mars the adjustment; 
the overturn of a single spray sets it grotesquely awry. 
How the outside of a tree appears in the foreground of the 
landscape, depends on the size and form and number of its 
leaves, and on the way they are held up into the light. Foli- 
age masses are endlessly varied. They are cumulous masses 
in the sugar-maple—masses of broad, shade-resistant leaves 
heaped up and compound-heaped like the front of a thunder- 
cloud. They are cancellate masses in the white birch. with 
its small thin leaves in open order like latticework. They 
are frondose masses in ailanthus and sumac and other trees 
having compound leaves. They are soft and furry cylinders, 
rather symmetrically arranged, in the spruces and tamarack; 
and other trees show all grades between these types. Hick- 
ories are given to be a bit irregular, and to hold their sprays 
rather stiffly, while the beech lets the fringe of its leaf-cover 
run down in long ornate sprays, that are poised in the 
hollows of the woods with exquisite grace. The softest ef- 
