spring's nectar of spicy air.
Others, again, have such showy blooms that the mass of foliage only
accentuates their attractiveness, and it is not possible to miss them.

[Illustration: The swamp white oak in winter]

But the oak is different; it is, as modest as it is strong, and its
bloom is nearly surrounded by the opening leaves in most seasons and in
most of the species I am just beginning to be acquainted with. Then,
too, these opening leaves are of such indescribable colors--if the
delicate chromatic tints they reflect to the eye may be so strongly
named--that they harmonize, and do not contrast, with the flowers. It is
with them almost as with a fearless chipmunk whose acquaintance I
cultivated one summer--he was gay with stripes of soft color, yet he so
fitted any surroundings he chose to be in that when he was quiet he
simply disappeared! The oak's flowers and its exquisite unfolding of
young foliage combine in one effect, and it is an effect so beautiful
that one easily fails to separate its parts, or to see which of the mass
of soft pink, gray, yellow and green is bloom and which of it is
leafage.

[Illustration: Flowers of the pin-oak]

Take the pin-oak, for instance, and note the softness of the greenery
above its flowers. Hardly can we define the young leaves as green--they
are all tints, and all beautiful. This same pin-oak, by the way (I mean
the one the botanists call _Quercus palustris_), is a notable
contradiction of the accepted theory that an oak of size and dignity
cannot be reared in a lifetime. There are hundreds of lusty pin-oaks all
over the Eastern States that are shading the homes of the wise men who
planted them in youth, and they might well adorn our parks and avenues
in place of many far less beautiful and permanent trees. With ordinary
care, and in good soil, the pin-oak grows rapidly, and the
characteristic spreading habit and the slightly down-drooping branches
are always attractive. In its age it has not the ruggedness of its kin,
though it assumes a stately and somewhat formal habit, and, I must
confess, accumulates some ragged dead branches in its interior.

This raggedness is easily cared for, for the tree requires--and few
trees do--no "trimming" of its outer branches. The interior twigs that
the rapid growth of the tree has deprived of air and light can be
quickly and easily removed. In Washington, where street-tree planting
has been and is intelligently managed under central