TREES IN UNDRESS. I51 



first nectar of the season on draught, prepared in 

 Nature's pharmacy for leaf and blossom. 



But these. trees have also, for the lover of the 

 beautiful, sweets more delectable than their sac- 

 charine juice. It is the peculiar spirit and char- 

 acter of maples, adorning the hills and writing 

 their names above, that he delights to look upon 

 and contemplate, though he have not the power 

 to describe. Along the roadsides, in the edges of 

 woods and in open fields, are seen these "leaf 

 monuments," throwing upward from their straight, 

 solid boles many tapering lines, that, with gradual 

 curvature, form almost regular pyramidal or hay- 

 stack heads. In the midst of forests, as if their 

 training had been neglected, and they had strug- 

 gled hard for life, their monograms are not so 

 well set or symmetrical, and are inclined to vary. 

 Sometimes one comes upon a gnarled and crooked 

 trunk, with limbs knock-kneed and covered with 

 wens and tumors. Frequently they rise straight 

 up without a bough, fifty or sixty feet, and then 

 show their traced crowns above the tops of other 

 trees. 



The persistent life of the maples, notwithstand- 

 ing the constant bleeding, is something wonderful 

 and grand. Mr. George B. Emerson speaks of 

 them being tapped for many years in succession, 

 without injury, and Robinson mentions maple 

 stumps, in Essex County, Mass., whereon were 



