Our naii^ve American shrubs are among the finest in the world. 

 Imagine them all taken away, and only the forest trees, grand 

 though these are, and the smaller herbaceous plants left. Then our 

 birds, which love best of all to hide in thickets of shrubbery, often 

 choosing the densest spots for their nests, would greatly suffer. 

 Many of our shy wild flowers, which nestle in cool copses, and our 

 pretty climbers, which love to weave their soft embraces around low 

 shrubs, would perish. The spring, deprived of the snowy clusters 

 of viburnums and honeysuckles, would lose one of its charms, and 

 the bright foliage and gayly-hued berries of many shrubs would be 

 sadly missed from the gorgeous landscape-painting of autumn, when 



" Great oaks in scarlet drapery reach 

 Across the crimson blackberry vine 

 Towards purple ash and sombre pine ;" 



" The orange-tinted sassafras 

 With quaintest foliage strews the grass. 

 Witch-hazel shakes her gold curls out 

 'Mid the red maple's flying rout!' 



Lucy Larcom. 



