inside, and the bud may be frozen solid. Although it seems 
a pity to have our minds disabused of the poetic fancy of the 
young “baby twig” tucked away, snug and warm, from the cold 
of winter, we can easily see that such is not the right interpreta- 
tion of a bud. 
The bud coverings may be of advantage in protecting the 
bud from too sudden changes of temperature, but what the bud- 
scales, and the sticky substance, and the woolly material really 
do is to prevent excessive loss of water from the young leaves 
and stem. On the colder days of winter, when these parts freeze, 
some of the water leaves the tissues and forms ice crystals on 
their surface. Were it not for the protection of the bud cover- 
ings, this water, on thawing out, would evaporate into the air 
faster than it could be reabsorbed into the plant. The parts 
would then wilt, and several repetitions of this during the winter 
would be sure to kill the living parts. They would die, not from 
cold, but from excessive loss of water. 
This actually happens sometimes when an unseasonably 
warm period in early spring is followed by freezing weather. 
The warm weather causes the buds to partly open, and this 
exposes the tender parts within, so that when the cold spell 
follows, they are not protected against the loss of water caused 
by freezing and subsequent thawing. 
But when the warmth of spring returns, the buds begin to 
open. This they do by processes precisely opposite to those by 
which they were formed during the preceding autumn. 
In the heart of the bud the stem portion begins to elongate, 
and the embryonic leaves begin to expand. The lower and outer- 
most scales are usually dead, but some of the inner scales, and 
especially their lower portions, have remained alive all winter. 
These scales begin to grow again, but now the upper (inner) 
surface grows faster than the lower (outer) surface, and the 
scales, in consequence, bend outward. By their growth, and 
also by the expansion of the inner parts, the external, dead scales 
are pushed outward, and thus the bud gradually opens. 
Under the genial influence of the heat and light of the sun 
the leaves soon begin to turn green, but at first they droop, 
