146 TREES IN UNDRESS. 



measured and proportioned to sustain a certain 

 weigiit of leaf and wood ! 



The signatures of the long-lived, Promethian 

 oaks have much character to them, especially if 

 they stand apart where the winds and weather 

 make them strong-willed and deep-rooted. What 

 iirm, vigorous lines the red oaks draw against 

 the sky ! Their branches are crooked, and the 

 spray is stiff and coarse, as if for the purpose of 

 supporting the heavy foliage. Is not the stumpy, 

 thick-set spray characteristic of most trees that 

 bear heavy burdens .■' 



The apple and pear trees write their names in a 

 cramped and crabbed style, and, if entirely wild 

 and untrained, the branch lines grow into snags 

 and thorns, so peculiar to the family. 



The shag-bark hickory is another curious wood- 

 land scribbler. Its trunk is seldom forked, but 

 the numerous boughs grow out laterally, often 

 describing short, downward curves close to the 

 bole. The twigs are bowed, and are more inclined 

 to spread out sideways from the branchlets than 

 to spring upward. The shaft, often rising seventy 

 or eighty feet, as if grown by a plumb-line, is cov- 

 ered with a dark granite-gray bark, giving it a still 

 more monumental appearance, while the singular 

 exfoliation of the rind, hanging in loose, irregular 

 flakes, like weather-beaten shingles on an old 

 building, is the plaited and foliated work, the hie- 



