210 
RURAL HOURS. 
are not so very common ; yet the hickory is not rare, atid both 
the black walnut and the butternut are met with. The syca- 
more, very abundant to the north of us, on the Mohawk, is rare 
here ; it is found on the banks of a litt-le stream two or three 
miles to the southward, and that is the only spot in the neigh- 
borhood where it has been observed. The pepperidge or sour- 
gum is found here and there only. The tulip-tree, abundant in 
most parts of the country, has not been seen within fifteen miles 
of our lake. The sweet-gum, or liquid-amber, is unknown here. 
The sassafras, also, is a stranger with us. That beautiful shrub, 
the laurel, so very common on the Hudson, is missed here ; it 
grows in the county, however, but more than twenty miles to the 
southward of our village. The handsome flowering dog-wood, 
so ornamental to the forests in other parts of the State, is also 
wanting in this neighborhood. 
The finest trees about the banks of our lake are remarkable 
rather for their height than their girth. Belonging to the old 
forest race, they have been closely pressed on all sides by their 
fellows, and the trunks rise in a branchless shaft to a commanding 
height; their foliage crowns the summit in full masses, and if 
n-ever devoid of the native graces of each species, still it has not 
all the beauty developed by the free growth of the open fields. 
The older ashes, elms, and oaks are striking trees, much more 
stern and simple than their brethren of the lawns and meadows, 
all bearing the peculiar character of forest growth. The younger 
tribe of the woods, from the same cause which gives a stern sim- 
plicity to their elders, become, on the other hand, even more light 
and airy than their fellows in the open ground ; shaded by the 
patriarchs of the forest, they shoot up toward the light in slen- 
