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rusty hue. The effects of these early frosts are seldom apparent while
the leaves are green, except on close inspection; for a very intense
frost is required to sear and roll up the leaves. Early autumnal frosts
seldom do more than to injure their capacity to receive a fine tint when
they become mature.

The next occasion that renders the injurious effects of frost apparent
is later in the season, after the tints are very generally developed.
Every severe frost that happens at this period impairs their lustre, as
we may perceive on any day succeeding a frosty night, when the woods,
which were previously in their gayest splendor, will be faded to a
duller and more uniform shade,--as if the whole mass had been dipped
into a brownish dye, leaving the peculiar tints of each species dimly
conspicuous through this shading. The most brilliant and unsullied hues
are displayed in a cool, but not frosty autumn, succeeding a moderate
summer. Very warm weather in autumn hastens the coloring process, and
renders the hues proportionally transient. I have known Maple woods,
early in October, to be completely embrowned and stripped of their
leaves by two days of summer heat. Cool days and nights, unattended with
frost, are the favorable conditions for producing and preserving the
beauty of autumnal wood-scenery.

The effects of heat and frost are not so apparent in Oak woods, which
have a more coriaceous and persistent foliage than other deciduous
trees: but Oaks do not attain the perfection of their beauty, until
the Ash, the Maple, and the Tupelo--the glory of the first period of
autumn--have shed a great portion of their leaves. The last-named trees
are in their splendor during a period of about three weeks after the
middle of September, varying with the character of the season.

Oaks are not generally tinted until October, and are brightest near the
third week of this month, preserving their lustre, in great measure,
until the hard frosts of November destroy the leaves. The colors of the
different Oaks are neither so brilliant nor so variegated as those of
Maples; but they are more enduring, and serve more than those of any
other woods to give character to our autumnal landscapes.

It would be difficult to convey to the mind of a person who had never
witnessed this brilliant, but solemn pageantry of the dying year, a
clear idea of its magnificence. Nothing else in Nature will compare
with it: for, though flowers are more beau