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beautiful at this season ; the trees throwing out their branches, 
one above another, in bright variety of coloring and outline, every 
individual of the gay throng having a fancy of his own to humor. 
The oak loves a deep, rich red, or a warm scarlet, though some 
of his family are partial to yellow. The chestnuts are all of one 
shadeless mass of gold-color, from the highest to the lowest 
branch. The bass-wood, or linden, is orange. The aspen, with 
its silvery stem and branches, flutters in a lighter shade, like the 
wrought gold of the jeweller. The sumach, with its long, pinnated 
leaf, is of a brilliant scarlet. The pepperidge is almost purple, 
and some of the ashes approach the same shade during certain sea- 
sons. Other ashes, with the birches and beech, hickory and 
elms, have their own tints of yellow. That beautiful and common 
vine, the Virginia creeper, is a vivid cherry-color. The sweet-gum 
is vermilion. The Viburnum tribe and dog-Avoods are dyed in lake. 
As for the maples, they always rank first among the show ; there 
is no other tree which contributes singly so much to the beauty 
of the season, for it unites more of brilliancy, with more of variety, 
than any of its companions ; with us it is also more common than 
any other tree. Here you have a soft maple, vivid scarlet from 
the highest to the lowest leaf ; there is another, a sugar maple, 
a pure sheet of gold ; this is dark crimson like the oak, that is 
vermilion ; another is parti- colored, pink and yellow, green and 
red ; yonder is one of a deep purplish hue ; this is still green, that 
is mottled in patches, another is shaded ; still another blends all 
these colors on its own branches, in capricious confusion, the dif- 
ferent limbs, the separate twigs, the single leaves, varying from 
each other in distinct colors, and shaded tints. And in every 
direction a repetition of this magnificent picture meets the eye : in 
