92 HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS. 
about it. It may be only the old apple tree standing 
near the cottage door, scattering its blossoms over the 
threshold in spring-time, and later dropping the mellow 
fruit in the well-trodden pathway; or, perhaps, the 
group of elms and maples that throw their shadows 
across the dooryard lawn, and through whose canopy of 
green leaves children have watched thestars. Like hills 
and mountains, the presence of trees stimulates the affec- 
tions, brightens the fancy, kindles the imagination, and 
increases the love of home and country. Few poets are 
found in a treeless country, and most of the old homes 
that have been kept in the same family, generation after 
generation, are those to which trees have added their 
greatest charm. 
You go to the woods even for the full enjoyment of 
the physical senses—smell, and sight, and sound. There 
the strong health-giving breath of the conifera is min- 
gled with the delicate, sweet odor of the violet and 
arbutus; there only can you look into the blue eyes of 
the Hepatica or find the rose-tinted flowering winter- 
green and the white and pink blossoms of the Mitchella 
—little flowers that fill the mind with an exquisite and 
unspeakable pleasure. In no other place will you hear 
in their perfection the sweetest of all music, the songs 
of the wood and hermit thrushes and the wild vibrating 
lyric of the winter wren. Nectar and ambrosia, drink 
and food of the gods, were supposed to be products of 
the woods. 
To the student naturalist, trees are especially interest- 
ing, as they contain the elements of many sciences. 
