A Window in Arcady 
December 15. —If you are disposed to think that 
winter marks the death of the year you should take a 
closer look at the trees. What though Jack Frost has 
locked fast the ponds and lesser streams and goes royster- 
ing about the country with his boon companion, the north 
wind? Set thick upon the trees are the young buds of a 
new year’s life—hope’s candles to keep us in cheer until 
the spring comes. Almost all the trees have their buds 
set, and if you have a friend who is disposed to talk about 
these being melancholy days, you can hardly do better 
than show him the heralds of spring resident upon the 
twigs. The branch that Noah’s dove brought back across 
the waste of waters was not more truly a harbinger of 
the return of better times than are these winter twigs 
of our forest trees. The bud usually appears in the axil 
of the old leaf stalk or near it, but an interesting varia¬ 
tion from this is made in the case of the buttonwood 
Here the bud is produced in hiding directly beneath the 
base of the leaf stalk, which fits like a cap upon the 
pointed head of the bud and finally falls off, leaving the 
latter bareheaded in a cold world. 
People are apt to give but scant attention to these win¬ 
ter buds, which are often very beautiful and characterized 
by the same marvelous variety that is upon all Nature’s 
handiwork. The buds of the white oak, for instance, 
are small, blunt excrescences, while those of the hickory 
are good-sized pointed cones, in shape reminding one 
of the sharp iron plugs of our boyhood’s tops. The 
beech buds, in tones of light chestnut, are an inch long, 
slender and delicately pointed like a lance head, while 
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