io8 



A MARCH CHRONICLE. 



line on the east ; and their gray, stately trunks are 

 seen across meadows or fields of grain. Then there is 

 a pair of Siamese twins, with heavy, bushy tops, while 

 in the forks of a wood-road stand the two brothers, 

 with their arms around each other's neck, and their 

 bodies in gentle contact for a distance of thirty feet. 



One immense maple, known as the " old-cream-pan- 

 tree," stands, or did stand, quite alone among a thick 

 growth of birches and beeches. But it kept its end up, 

 and did the work of two or three ordinary trees, as its 

 name denotes. Next to it the best milcher in the lot 

 was a shaggy-barked tree in the edge of the field, that 

 must have been badly crushed or broken when it was 

 little, for it had an ugly crook near the ground, and 

 seemed to struggle all the way up to get in an upright 

 attitude, but never quite succeeded ; yet it could out- 

 run all its neighbors nevertheless. The poorest tree 

 in the lot was a short-bodied, heavy-topped tree, that 

 stood in the edge of a spring run. It seldom produced 

 half a gallon of sap during the whole season ; but this 

 half-gallon was very sweet, — three or four times as 

 sweet as the ordinary article. In the production of 

 sap, top seems far less important than body. It is not 

 length of limb that wins in this race, but length of 

 trunk. A heavy, bushy-topped tree in the open field, 

 for instance, will not, according to my observation, 

 compare with a tall, long-trunked tree in the woods, 

 that has but a small top. Young, thrifty, thin-skinned 

 trees start up with great spirit, indeed, fairly on a run ; 



