PREFACE 
May we hope that, with more detailed study of some 
species of our familiar trees, the desire to know others 
will arise? “If we find ‘our warmest welcome at. 
an inn,” writes Oliver Wendell Holmes, “we find 
our most soothing companionship in trees among 
which we have lived, some of which we may ourselves 
have planted. We lean against them and they never 
betray our trust; they shield us from. the sun and 
from the rain; their spring welcome is a new birth 
which never loses its freshness; they lay their 
‘beautiful robes at our feet in autumn; in winter 
they ‘stand and wait, emblems of patience and of 
truth, for they hide nothing, not even the little leaf- 
buds which hint to us of. hope, the last element in 
their triple symbolism.” 
In these pages we have not dealt with the 
different kinds of trees in any particular’ order; but 
at the close of. the next series, which will complete 
the work, we shall give a botanical synopsis of them 
all in a scientific arrangement. 
