64 
RURAL HOURS. 
fiTiit trees generally, &c., &c., blossom when mere shmbs three or 
four feet high ; but the sugar maple and the scarlet maple are 
good-sized trees before they flower. There are many about the 
village which are known to be twenty years old, and they have 
not yet blossomed. 
The American maples — the larger sorts, at least — the sugar, the 
scarlet, and the silver maples, are assuredly very fine trees. A 
healthful luxuriance of growth marks their character ; regular and 
somewhat rounded in form when allowed to grow in freedom, 
their branches and trunks are very rarely distorted, having almost 
invariably an easy upward inclination more or less marked. The 
bark on younger trees, and upon the limbs of those which are 
older, is often very beautifully mottled in patches or rings of 
clear grays, hghter and darker — at times almost as white as that 
on the delicate birches. The northern side of the branches is 
usually, with us much more speckled than that toward the south. 
They are also very cleanly, free from troublesome vermin or in- 
sects. Few trees have a finer foliage ; deep lively green in color, 
while the leaves are large, of a handsome forai, smooth and 
glossy, and very numerous ; for it is a peculiarity of theirs, that 
they produce every year many small shoots, each well covered 
with leapes. When bare in winter, one remarks that their fine 
spray is decidedly thicker than that of many other trees. To 
these advantages they add their early flowers in spring, and a 
beautiful brilliancy of coloring in the autumn. The European 
maple, a diff'erent tree entirely, comes into leaf after the elm, and 
is even later than the ash ; but those of this part of the world 
have the farther merit of being numbered among the earlier tregs 
of the forest. 
