er the
base of the old leaf-stalk, by which it is covered like a cap. Examine
the fallen leaves of these trees, and you will see the cavity in the
base of each where the new bud was cradled. Why the beech, the oak,
and the hickory cling to their old leaves is not clear. It may be
simply a slovenly trait--inability to finish and have done with a
thing--a fault of so many people. Some oaks and beeches appear to lack
decision of character. It requires strength and vitality, it seems,
simply to let go. Kill a tree suddenly, and the leaves wither upon the
branches. How neatly and thoroughly the maples, the ashes, the
birches, the elm clean up. They are tidy, energetic trees, and can
turn over a new leaf without hesitation.

A correspondent, writing to me from one of the colleges, suggests that
our spring really begins in December, because the "annual cycle of
vegetable life" seems to start then. At this time he finds that many
of our wild flowers--the bloodroot, hepatica, columbine, shinleaf,
maidenhair fern, etc.--have all made quite a start toward the next
season's growth, in some cases the new shoot being an inch high. But
the real start of the next season's vegetable life in this sense is
long before December. It is in late summer, when the new buds are
formed on the trees. Nature looks ahead, and makes ready for the new
season in the midst of the old. Cut open the terminal hickory buds in
the late fall and you will find the new growth of the coming season
all snugly packed away there, many times folded up and wrapped about
by protecting scales. The catkins of the birches, alders, and hazel
are fully formed, and as in the case of the buds, are like eggs to be
hatched by the warmth of spring. The present season is always the
mother of the next, and the inception takes place long before the sun
loses his power. The eggs that hold the coming crop of insect life are
mostly laid in the late summer or early fall, and an analogous start
is made in the vegetable world. The egg, the seed, the bud, are all
alike in many ways, and look to the future. Our earliest spring
flower, the skunk-cabbage, may be found with its round green
spear-point an inch or two above the mould in December. It is ready to
welcome and make the most of the first fitful March warmth. Look at
the elms, too, and see how they swarm with buds. In early April they
suggest a swarm of bees.

In all cases, before Nature closes her house in the fall, she makes
re