The foliage of the June woods has not the delicacy of tints which was so
exquisite in May, nor the strength of color which will be so striking in
September. But it has a beauty no less admirable. The chlorophyll in the
leaf-cells is now at its prime and the leaves very closely approach a
pure green, especially those of the sycamore, which is the nearest to a
pure green of any tree in the forest. Standing in the wood road which
runs along the top of a timbered crest we look across a broad, wooded
valley where the leaves seem to exhale a soft, yellowish green in the
bright sunlight. Beyond and above them, five miles away, and yet
apparently very near, a belt of bluish green marks the timber fringe of
the next water course. Still farther, another unseen stretch of corn land
intervening, the forest crowned ridge meets the soft sky in a line of
lavender, as if it were a strata cloud lying low on the horizon. From
this distance the lavender and purple are almost changeless every sunny
day the year around. Always the Enchanted Land and the Delectable
Mountains over across the valley. How like the alluring prospect across
the valley of years! Always the same soft lavender haze there, while the
woods here run through all the gamut of color, from the downy pinks and
whites and the tender greens of spring through the deeper greens of
summer to the crimson and scarlet of the fall, and the russets, grays,
and coffee-browns of the winter. When the foliage of the forest has
deepened into one dark shade of verdure then we know that June is far
spent, spring has gone and summer is here. The uniform green is not
monotonous. See the woods in the hour before sunset when the slanting
light gives the foliage consummate glory. See them again in the white
light of a clear noon when the glazed leaves seem to reflect a white veil
over the pure verdure; and again when the breeze ripples through the
leafy canopy, showing the silvery under-surfaces of the maple leaves, the
neat spray of the river birches, the deeply cleft leaves of the scarlet
oak and the finely pinnate leaves of the honey locust. Each has a glory