LEAF AND BRANCH 
the Eastern tangle of wild cherry, hickory, and 
beech, have little resemblance one to another. 
And those long aisles and open spaces in the 
forest of oak and chestnut—spaces where the 
sunlight breaks through in splashes, where the 
creeper grows and the cardinal flower gleams— 
what a contrast they are to the dark depths of 
the ‘‘pinery,” where the closed-up ranks of the 
trees shut out the light of the sun, where the 
long moss hangs in festoons from the branches, 
and only stray patches of the lowly pink peer 
through the carpet of pine-needles ! 
But deep forest and dark pinery are hardly 
attractive to the average person. People have 
some fear of the shadow and the solitude, and 
quickly wish themselves back in the sunshine 
with friends. They prefer the more open 
groves, where the light breaks in flickering 
bars across the wood-road, where the field of 
golden-rod is in sight, and the blue sky is not 
shut out. Certainly the open woods are the 
most enjoyable, the most livable spots; yet 
those great interlaced forests where light filters 
through only in arrowy shafts, where the bear 
and the wolf slink like spectres and the deer 
breaks suddenly from his bed—those labyrinths 
through which stretches no Dedalian thread 
Variety of 
Sorests. 
The depths 
of the 
Sorest. 
