66 



THE GIFT OF TONGUES IN TREES. 



long row of tall poplars, like old Continentals in line, 

 sentinel the classic halls. The trees were brought 

 from Philadelphia, whither they had been imported 

 b}' Thomas Jefferson from Lombardy. They were 

 planted on College Hill between 1804 and 1808, 

 under the direction of Samuel Kirkland and his 

 daughter." Few colleges have had the happy bap- 

 tismal fortune of such a half-dozen godfathers as 

 Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Steuben and 

 Kirkland. These trees are cherished in their drear 

 old age as Jefferson's trees. President North speaks 

 of them as "the buttressed poplars, shivering in 



helps out, besides, a natural allegory that long has 

 been a sort of oft-recurring object-lesson to sucq 

 of the students as dwell in the village below, and 

 climb the hill to recitations. There are two abrupt 

 turns in this hill. From time immemorial, so the 

 college legend holds, the distance from the foot to 

 the first turn has been called ' ' Freshman Hill, " and 

 that from the first to the second turn, " Sophomore 

 Hill. " The distance from the second turn to the top 

 is nearly straight, but fortunately the row of pop- 

 lars, extending about half its length, marks a dis- 

 tinct division. The lower of these is ' ' Junior Hill'' ; 



A Typical American Elm 



their old age, and still pining for the softer airs of 

 Lombardy." In most places it must be confessed 

 that the Lombardy poplar is unfit for shade or 

 poetry. It gets to be excessively woody and lost to 

 verdure. Its popularity has risen and waned, and 

 it will be^planted hereafter mainly for windbreaks 

 on the prairies. But the row that follows down the 

 steep slope of College Hill, as pictured (see page 67), 

 points not alone the way of timid freshmen to the 

 higher walks of classic aspiration, but that of the 

 senior down into the valley, where the villages wait 

 for his eloquence, and the cities long for his store 

 of profound wisdom ! This ancient row of poplars 



-Grandest of Trees. 

 the upper, " Senior Hill" — that last arduous climb 

 to the fane of learning from whose altar the grad- 

 uates address their words of wisdom to admiring 

 audiences. Commencement Day. 



For delicious associations the sugar-maple is 

 unique. Sugar from a tree ? Yes, and in such vast 

 quantities and of such luscious quality that nothing 

 saccharine ever matched it. No wonder the Eng- 

 lish tourist went home disgusted that lack of enter- 

 prise had allowed so much sap to go to waste ! "It 

 should be bottled up," he insisted, "and used as a 

 harvest drink." But the richest commerce of colo- 

 nial life centered in the "maple-orchards." There 



