the amount of this covering and the brightness of its color 

 vary greatly on different individuals ; it is generally com- 

 mon, however, on the leaves while they are young but 

 gradually disappears, leaving the under surface whitish or 

 bluish white. , a 



In the canons of the Coast-ranges, where the Golden- 

 leaved Oak grows at its best, it is usually a tree forty to 

 sixty feet in height, although individuals nearly a hundred 

 feet tall may sometimes be found, with a short trunk two 

 to four or rarely ten feet in diameter, dividing near the 

 ground into great branches which, spreading at right an- 

 gles touch the soil with their extremities and form a mass 

 Sf foliage sometimes a hundred and fifty feet across, the 

 bark of the trunk and of the branches is ashy gray and 

 covered with flaky scales. The leaves, like the young 

 shoots as they unfold are clothed with the golden pubes- 

 cence, and make a charming contrast with the mature 

 leaves of previous years. These are usually about two 

 inches long, oblong, pointed, obtuse or slightly heart- 

 shaped at the base, and usually entire on old trees, 

 although on young and very vigorous trees, and especial y 

 on suckers, they are sinuate-toothed. They are thick 

 firm bright and lustrous on the upper surface at first, 

 although in time the bright green becomes more or less 

 shaded with yellow. The male flowers, with eight to ten 

 'stamens and a five to seven-leaved perianth are produced 

 in short often branched catkins, while the female flowers 



east where, perhaps, our summers are too moist for them ; 

 and' in northern and central Europe they do not succeed, 

 but in Australia, or in some part of the Mediterranean 

 basin perhaps some spot can be found where congenial 

 conditions can be provided for these trees, and where, if 

 they -row as they have grown in the California valleys, 

 they will repay the care and labor needed to rear them. 



Suitable Names for Country Places. 

 T N naming a country place there is great difficulty in hitting 

 1 upon a title that shall be pleasing and suggestive without 

 being- hackneved or savoring of sentimentality. 



In an old country like England, where the language bears 

 traces of Norse and Saxon and Roman occupation, there are 

 a number of strong monosyllables descriptive of certain divi- 

 sions of land that form effective combinations with more 

 familiar words, or with a family name, for the designation of 

 a country-seat or villa ; so that their old titles seem particu- 

 larly happy and removed from the commonplace. Doomsday 

 Book contains a number of these ancient terms in its de- 

 scriptions of the holdings of the people in the days of William 

 the Conqueror. A toft was a grove of trees on a hill, a croft 

 an enclosure, the meadow-lands were divided into garths and 

 deals bv great furrows plowed by eight yoke of oxen, the 

 waverinV course of which can still be recognized from some 

 Yorkshire hill, as well as the wide sweeps made by them in 

 turning the corners, showing the curiously unchanging char- 

 acter ot" English country life. 



There were then, as now, moors, or heaths, of wide extent, 

 wolds— which sometimes mean a wood, and again a hilly re- 

 gion devoid of timber, which may once have borne a forest 

 on its rolling surface, of which only the name survives— and 

 holms which signify low, Hat stretches of land near a stream, 

 and also a river-islet. Hiedi ridges of land were known as rigs ; 

 isolated rocks, like towers, are still called tors ; the groves 

 were wealds and the forest-clearings royds ; gate and forth, 

 in Yorkshire, still mean a road. The old English name for a 

 wild beast deor, which in these combinations means a deer, 

 survives in Darby, or Derby ; in Darlands, also written Dare- 

 lands and Deerlands, and in Dar-ton, which is found in old 

 English as deortun (deer-park). A map of Derby, made in 

 1611 contains an emblematic drawing of a deer-park sur- 

 rounded by a wooden fence, with a single deer in the middle. 



Also, in such names as Goat's Cliffe, Kid Tor, Lamb Hill and 

 Hart Hill linger pastoral reminiscences of old England; 

 Gates head means the goat's hill, and probably Gad's hill is a 

 corruption of the same word, while the palace of the Arch- 

 bishop of Canterbury, Lambeth, bears record of a heath on 

 Which the lambs disported themselves before the town of 

 London was built. A reminiscence of the Druids lingers 

 Selioke (blessed Oak), and a reminder of Christian zeal ... 

 Swinnock (burnt Oak), where the bishops cut down and burned 

 these relics of heathen worship. , 



Throughout England the rural districts in their names bear 

 traces of its history and its religions, of its early beliefs in 

 f-iiries and wiants, in Norns and sprites, and of the transfer of 

 tradition to saints and the Virgin Mary, so that the titles of 

 towns and fields and homesteads are an unfailingly interesting 



St In^our own geography we have reason to be grateful for 

 such Indian names as have not been supplanted by honored 

 Fmdish ones, or ugly inventions of our own, and some of these 

 trices still linger in beautiful country-seats along the Hudson 

 River which are described by soft Algonquin syllables, as 

 Al"-onac (hill and river), which is the name of a fine place at 

 Newburgh. Canonchet is the Indian name of the Sprague 

 place in Rhode Island ; Noneguacut Farm of a Rhode Island 

 sea-shore home, and Chamcook of an estate on Passama- 

 quoddyBay, formerly occupied by Mr. Wilson 



There is a pleasant set of names that we often find used both 

 in England and this country, such as Hawkswood, Crow's-nest, 

 Oaklands, Hillside, Bellevue, Eagleswood, and the like, which 

 have become so hackneyed from frequent use that one hesi- 

 tates to employ them, no matter how appropriate they may 

 be to the surroundings. 



Other names have associations which endear them to us, 

 like Sunnyside, which Washington Irving has made famous ; 

 Ede-ewood, where Ik Marvel's farm continues to interest us; 

 Id'lewild that Willis celebrated ; Elmwood, where Lowell lived 

 and died, so that we hesitate to apply them to any less well- 

 known place. In fact, when one begins the search for a tresh 

 and telling name he finds the crop pretty well harvested 

 already. 



