GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TREES 



spring, forgetting for the time our shops and 

 desks, our stores and marts? 



Professor Sargent, that deep student of trees 

 who has built himself a monument, which is 

 also a beneficence to all mankind, in the great 

 volumes of his "Silva of North America," lives 

 not far from Boston, and he loves especially 

 that jewel of the apple family which, for want 

 of a common name, I must designate scientifi- 

 cally as Pyrus floribunda. On his own magnif- 

 icent estate, as well as at the Arboretum, this 

 superb shrub or small tree riots in rosy beauty 

 in early spring. While the leaves do come 

 with these flowers, they are actually crowded 

 back out of apparent sight by the straight 

 wands of rose-red blooms, held by the twisty 

 little tree at every angle and in indescribable 

 beauty. If the visitor saw nothing but this 

 Floribunda apple — "abundant flowering" sure 

 enough — on his pilgrimage, he might well be 

 satisfied, especially if he then and there 

 resolved to see it again, either as he planted it 

 at home or journeyed hither another spring 

 for the enlargement of his soul. 



There are other of these delightful crabs or 



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