THE WOODS. 



129 



roadsides; and, to be seen at times amongst these older 

 generations, are, finally, a few young saplings of com- 

 mon juniper and red cedar, sprung from seeds dropped 

 by birds that had carried them from trees planted years 

 ago about the homestead. Why, the old woods has in 

 and about it nearly forty kinds of trees, with more 

 merchantable varieties among them than are to be 

 found in the entire Adirondack forest. Of the smaller 

 shrubs, wild currants, gooseberries, blackberries, and 

 red and black raspberries grow profusely in spots. Of 

 trees not native to the region, but placed for ornamental 

 purposes about the farm, are yet to be seen the red 

 cedar, pitch pine, and Norway spruce, a couple of gray 

 birches, and a young persimmon-tree, while formerly 

 two Carolina poplars bordered the well, and a fine, 

 broad-leaved catalpa shaded the trough. 



Each tree, having seed in itself, as the Scriptures 

 say, erects itself from infancy predestined, as it were, 

 to a certain type, contour, shape, individuality; yet this 

 resemblance of the species may be much altered in occa- 

 sional single instances, by external circumstances, by its 

 closeness to other trees, for example, and by the vari- 

 eties of these surrounding trees, some being more favor- 

 able to its growth than others, as they screen or admit 

 the light — so that a maple in one part of the woods 

 may appear but little like one in another, and even 

 totally different in outline from a brother in the open 

 field. 



Of these many varieties of trees not a few resemble 

 each other in bark and structure, though each yet re- 

 maining different and preserving distinct its own unique- 

 ness. As a rule, everywhere, trees of the same family 



