repellent appearance. In California the flame-colored acres of
poppies in some places, of white or yellow daisylike flowers in
others, or of purple blossoms elsewhere have a softer expression
than the bare soil of the desert. Yet they lack the delicate
blending and harmony of colors which is the greatest charm of the
autumn foliage in the deciduous forests. Even where the forests
consist of such trees as birches, beeches, aspens, or sycamores,
whose leaves merely turn yellow in the fall, the contrast between
this color and the green tint of summer or the bare branches of
winter adds a spice of variety which is lacking in other and more
monotonous forests.

From still other points of view the deciduous forest has an
almost unequaled degree of variety. In one place it consists of
graceful little birches whose white trunks shimmering in the
twilight form just the background for ghosts. Contrast them with
the oak forest half a mile away. There the sense of gracefulness
gives place to a feeling of strength. The lines are no longer
vertical but horizontal. The knotted elbows of the branches
recall the keels of sturdy merchantmen of bygone days. The acorns
under foot suggest food for the herds of half-wild pigs which
roam among the trees in many a southern county. Of quite another
type are the stately forests of the Appalachians where splendid
magnolia and tulip trees spread their broad limbs aloft at
heights of one hundred feet or more.

Deciduous forests grow in the well-balanced regions where summer
and winter approach equality, where neither is unduly long, and
where neither is subject to prolonged drought. They extend
southward from central New England, the Great Lakes, and