tterly different from the
familiar contents of the ripened nut of commerce) was gladly taken. Now
the bearing trees are within the bounds of the United States proper, and
the grand trees in Southern Florida give plenty of fruit. The African
citizens of that neighborhood are well aware of the refreshing character
of the "juice" of the green cocoanut, and a friend who sees things for
me with a camera tells with glee how a "darky" at Palm Beach left him in
his wheel-chair to run with simian feet up a sloping trunk, there to
pull, break open, and absorb the contents of a nut, quite as a matter of
course. I have myself seen the Africans of the Bahamas in the West
Indies climbing the glorious cocoa palms of the coral keys, throwing
down the mature nuts, and then, with strong teeth, stripping the tough
outer covering to get at the refreshing interior.

All these nut trees are only members of the great family of trees given
by God for man's good, I firmly believe; for man first comes into
Biblical view in a garden of trees, and the city and the plain are but
penances for sin!

Some Other Trees

In preceding chapters of this series I have treated of trees in a
relationship of family, or according to some noted similarity. There
are, however, some trees of my acquaintance of which the family
connections are remote or unimportant, and there are some other trees of
individual merit with the families of which I am not sufficiently well
acquainted to speak familiarly as a whole. Yet many of these trees,
looked at by themselves, are as beautiful, interesting, and altogether
worthy as any of which I have written, and they are also among the
familiar trees of America. Therefore I present a few of them apart from
the class treatment.

* * * * *

One day in very early spring--or was it very late in winter?--I walked
along the old canal road, looking for some evidence in tree growth that
spring was really at hand. Buds were swelling, and here and there a
brave robin could be heard telling about it in song to his mate (I think
that settled the season as earliest spring!); but beyond the bud
evidences the trees seemed to be silent on the subject. Various herbs
showed lusty beginnings, and the skunk-cabbage, of course, had pushed up
its tropical richness in defiance of any late frost, pointing the way to
its peculiar red-purple flowers, long since fertilized and turning
toward maturity.

The sear