92 WINTER SUNSHINE 



side-hill where sheep and cattle graze. An equal 

 number crowd up to the line on the east; and their 

 gray, stately trunks are seen across meadows or 

 fields of grain. Then there is a pair of Siamese 

 twins, with heavy, bushy tops; while in the forks 

 of a wood-road stand the two brothers, with their 

 arms around each other's neck, and their bodies in 

 gentle contact for a distance of thirty feet. 



One immense maple, known as the "old-cream- 

 pan- tree," stands, or did stand, quite alone among 

 a thick growth of birches and beeches. But it kept 

 its end up, and did the work of two or three ordi- 

 nary trees, as its name denotes. Next to it the 

 best milcher in the lot was a shaggy-barked tree in 

 the edge of the field, that must have been badly 

 crushed or broken when it was little, for it had an 

 ugly crook near the ground, and seemed to struggle 

 all the way up to get in an upright attitude, but 

 never quite succeeded; yet it could outrun all its 

 neighbors nevertheless. The poorest tree in the lot 

 was a short-bodied, heavy-topped tree that stood in 

 the edge of a spring-run. It seldom produced half 

 a gallon of sap during the whole season; but this 

 half gallon was very sweet, — three or four times as 

 sweet as the ordinary article. In the production of 

 sap, top seems far less important than body. It is 

 not length of limb that wins in this race, but length 

 of trunk. A heavy, bushy-topped tree in the open 

 field, for instance, will not, according to my obser- 

 vation, compare with a tall, long-tmnked tree in 

 the woods, that has but a small top. Young, thrifty, 



