TREES IN WINTER. 



707 



for this Pippin is an enormous apple, and the nearer the 

 ground it hangs the safer it is from bruises. A Northern 

 Spy, on the contrary, runs it limbs all out like a fan, 

 and from one point. You see now how easily this tree 

 may split and break down when loaded with fruit. But 



that robins love apple trees ; but birds, as a rule, do not 

 select a tree that they learn is to be climbed over for 

 fruit-gathering. There are more nests by far in those 

 young maples. What a host of bird-homes there are in 

 the trees! We could not see a tenth of them until th^ 



most apple trees are, as you see, built to carry heavy 

 burdens. They have an abundance of short pliant twigs 

 that can bend over, each one with its own apple or pair 

 of apples. Spreading apple-boughs always suggest tc 

 me a hammock. Some nests among the boughs prove 



leaves were off. Now it seems from the dark disks dot- 

 ting tree-boughs that some of them contain bird-villages. 



The willow is, unfortunately a brittle tree, and easily 

 broken in a storm ; otherwise nothing could be finer than 

 a clump of old willow trees, A superb group of great 



