The Study of Trees

Children should be made early intimate with the trees, too; should pick out half a dozen trees, oak, elm, ash, beech, in their winter nakedness, and take these to be their year-long friends.  In the winter, they will observe the light tresses of the birch, the knotted arms of the oak, the sturdy growth of the sycamore.  They may wait to learn the names of the trees until the leaves come.  By-an-by, as the spring advances, behold a general stiffening and look of life in the still bare branches; life stirs in the beautiful mystery of the leaf-buds, a nest of delicate baby-leaves lying in downy warmth within many waterproof wrappings; oak and elm, beech and birch, each has its own way of folding and packing its leaflets; observe the ‘ruby-budded lime’[1] and the ash, with its pretty stag’s foot of a bud, not green but black –

            “More black than ash-buds in the front of March.”[2]