Persimmon History 
tween the large single stone and the enveloping dryish rind. 
Our old lane will probably yield us a persimmon tree 
or two, and it is pleasant to look up into the thinning 
leaves and see clinging to the limbs the round, fat per¬ 
simmons, like rosy little puddings tied about the throat. 
There has hardly been frost enough yet to soften their 
asperities, and we shall do well to treat very gingerly the 
fruit we may now find upon the ground. Something of 
the old malicious spirit lingers in persimmons which was in 
that strange fruit, sardo, that grew anciently in Sardinia 
and so contorted the faces of those who ate it as to give to 
them a look of unreal laughter and so to human speech 
the adjective sardonic. 
Nevertheless, few wild fruits are so dear to the Ameri¬ 
can heart as this, which with many of us is associated with 
wholesome country outings and good times, and has a 
special place in popular song and story. It may not be 
generally known that ebony is the wood of certain species 
of persimmon trees that grow in tropical regions. Our 
North American variety, while presenting in its heart- 
wood—which is dark and close-grained—some character¬ 
istics of the ebony of commerce, does not develop a timber 
of much value. 
October 20. —The autumn rains have served to keep 
the pastures quite green, late as it is, but rusty brown 
patches appear here and there. These are not altogether 
the effect of withering vegetation, but in many places are 
due to the presence in great abundance of a curious little 
plant called the clammy cuphea, a country cousin of the 
familiar cigar plant of old-fashioned gardens. It bears 
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