FOREST TREES AND FOREST SCENERY 
comely and graceful in middle age, 
rather than beautiful in the ordinary 
meaning of that word. It is an easy, 
airy tree. And yet the time comes 
when it loses its ease and grace, when 
its trunk grows darker and its boughs 
become straggly and rough, when it 
puts on the strength of age without its 
decrepitude and bears unflinchingly the 
weight of winter snows. Is it now less , 
interesting than in its youth? I think 
not. It makes the woods rough and 
natural, and we admire its simplicity, 
self-sufficiency, and endurance. 
‘When young there is no tree with 
such elegant and yet loose and pretty 
effects in the foliage, unless it should 
be one of its western cousins. The 
spray hangs delicately from the sides 
of the tree and the top is gracefully 
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