ty and the half-savage,
half-aesthetic grace have not wholly escaped him, but the color,--ah I
there is the disappointment.

I have always nursed a fancy that there is something essential to
perfect health in the bitters and sweets of buds and roots and gums and
resins of the primeval woods. Why does the bird keep, even in old age,
the same brilliancy of plumage and the same clearness of eye? Is it
because it gets the _elixir vitae_ from the hidden reservoir of
nature? Be this as it may, there are times when I sincerely long for a
ball of liquidambar or a mouthful of pungent spring buds. The inner bark
of the tulip-tree has the wildest of all wild tastes, a peculiarly
grateful flavor when taken infinitesimally, something more savage than
sassafras or spice-wood, and full of all manner of bitter hints and
astringent threatenings: it has long been used as the very best
appetizer for horses in the early spring, and it is equally good for
man. The yellow-bellied woodpecker knows its value, taking it with head
jauntily awry and quiet wing-tremblings of delight. The squirrels get
the essence of it as they munch the pale leaf-buds, or later when they
bite the cones out of the flowers. The humming-birds and wild bees are
the favored ones, however, for they get the ultimate distillation of all
the racy and fragrant elements from root to bloom.

The Indians knew the value of the tulip-tree as well as its beauty.
Their most graceful pirogues were dug from its bole, and its odorous
bark served to roof their rude houses. No boat I have ever tried runs so
lightly as a well-made tulip pirogue, or dug-out, and nothing under
heaven is so utterly crank and treacherous. Many an unpremeditated
plunge into cold water has one caused me while out fishing or
duck-shooting on the mountain-streams of North Georgia. If you dare
stand up in one, the least waver from a perfect balance will send the
sensitive, skittish thing a rod from under your feet, which of course
leaves you standing on the water without the faith to keep you from
going under; and usually it is your head that you are standing on. But,
to return to our tree, I would like to see its merits as an ornamental
and shade tree duly recognized. If grown in the free air and sunlight,
it forms a heavy and beautifully-shaped top, on a smooth, bright bole,
and I think it might be forced to bloom about the fifteenth year. The
flowers of young, thrifty trees that have been left standing in op