Viewed from the window of a railway train, the February fields and
woods seem dead and dreary. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Every twig is lined with living buds, carefully covered with scales.
Inside those scales are leaves and blossoms deftly packed, as only
Mother Nature could pack them. Split one down the middle and examine
it with your lens. You will see the little tender leaves, and often
the blossoms, ready to break out in beauty when the warm days come
and flood the world with color. Men try to photograph nature, but no
photograph could do justice to the clustered buds of the red maple or
the downy buds of the slippery elm. The long green gray buds of the
butternut, pistillate flowers in some, staminate flowers in others;
the saffron buds of the butternut hickory; the ruby buds of the bass
wood; the varnished bud scales of the sycamore and the poplar; the big
gummy scales which protect the pussy catkins of the aspen; the queer
little buds of the sumac and the rusty buds of the ash; every one of
these refutes the aspersions cast upon the winter woods by those who
never go out to see. In their noble beauty of massive and graceful
form, with their exquisite symmetry of outline, their varied
arrangement of branches and twigs, giving to every species an
individual expression, every twig studded with these gem-like buds,
how very beautiful are the winter trees! One might almost find it in
his heart to feel sorry that this rare mingling of sculpture and
fretwork and lace is soon to be draped with a mantle of green.

* * * * *

Why did Bryant dwell so often on the theme of death in Nature? The
reminders of death are very few compared with the signs of life.
Break off a twig from the aspen and taste the bark. The strong quinine
flavor is like a spring tonic. Cut a branch of the black cherry, peel