TREES. 
W. E. WATT. 
Woodman, spare that tree! 
■ Touch not a single bough! 
In youth it sheltered me, 
And I'll protect it now. —Morris. 
The monarch oak, the patriarch of the trees, 
Shoots rising up, and spreads by slow degrees; 
Three centuries he grows, and three he stays 
Supreme in state; and in three more decays. — Dryden. 
SUNLIGHT and moisture fall 
upon the earth and find it full 
of germs of life. At once 
growths begin each after its 
own kind. There is such a multitude 
of them that they have not yet been 
counted. Each locality has forms pe- 
culiar to itself. The places most 
abundantly watered have different 
forms from those less favored by rain 
and dew, and those receiving more 
heat and sun allow more luxuriant 
growths than others if the water supply 
is large. 
The business of life and growth is 
mostly carried on by means of water 
set in motion and sustained by heat. 
Those forms of life which reach high- 
est above the surface of the earth are 
called trees. They are always striving 
to see what heights they can attain. 
But the different forms of life have 
limits set them which they cannot pass. 
The structure of one tree is limited to 
carrying its top twenty feet from the 
ground, that of another is so favored 
that it can reach twice that height, and 
others tower high above us and stand 
for centuries. 
But the same tree does not flourish 
with the same vigor in different places. 
The nourishment of the soil may favor 
it or poverty dwarf its growth. Moist- 
ure and heat must be supplied or the 
growth will be slight. 
I have stood upon the thick tops of 
cedar trees on high places in the White 
mountains near the tree-line. Towards 
the summit the trees diminish in size 
until they become veritable dwarfs. 
They are stunted by the cold. They 
shrink aside or downward trying to 
find shelter from the angry winds that 
are so cutting. Diminutive tree trunks 
are found that have curled themselves 
into sheltering crannies of rock and 
grown into such distorted shapes that 
they are gathered as curiosities. 
The last trees to give up the fight on 
Mount Adams are the cedars of which 
I speak. They hug the rock for the 
little warmth that may be lurking 
there in remembrance of the sun's 
kindly rays; they mat themselves to- 
gether and interlock their branches so 
as to form a springy covering to the 
whole ground. One may lie down 
upon their tops as upon a piece of up- 
holstery, and in the openings below are 
rabbits and woodchucks and sometimes 
bears safely hidden from the view of 
the hunter. 
From these ground-hugging trees of 
the mountain-tops to the great red- 
woods of our western slopes the mind 
passes the entire range of tree life. 
No trees are so great as our redwoods, 
though in Australia the eucalyptus 
reaches higher with a comparatively 
slender trunk. Where the forests are 
thickest, and the growth of the trees 
consequently tallest, the eucalyptus 
towers sometimes four or five hundred 
feet towards the sky. 
The shrinking of mountain trees 
where the rock affords some warmth 
and shelter is shown on a larger scale 
in the forms of trees that stand at the 
edge of a forest. Where a stream di- 
vides the forest we find the trees upon 
the bank reaching out their branches 
and spreading luxuriant foliage over 
the water, because the open air in that 
direction helps the growth of leaves 
and twigs. Shade trees by the road- 
side reach out towards the open space 
of the road and grow one-sided because 
the conditions of light and air are bet- 
233 
