in the wind; and, if a stream
is passed, there are sure to be seen on its banks the sturdy trunks of
the white and the black willows at least. Think of an average landscape
with the willows eliminated, and there will appear a great vacancy not
readily filled by another tree.

The weeping willow has always made a strong appeal to me, but never one
of simple grief or sorrow. Its expression is rather of great dignity,
and I remember watching in somewhat of awe one which grew near my
childhood's home, as its branches writhed and twisted in a violent
rain-storm, seeming then fairly to agonize, so tossed and buffeted were
they by the wind. But soon the storm ceased, the sun shone on the
rounded head of the willow, turning the raindrops to quickly vanishing
diamonds, and the great tree breathed only a gentle and benignant peace.
When, in later years, I came to know the moss-hung live-oak of the
Southland, the weeping willow assumed to me a new dignity and value in
the northern landscape, and I have strongly resented the attitude of a
noted writer on "Art Out of Doors" who says of it: "I never once have
seen it where it did not hurt the effect of its surroundings, or at
least, if it stood apart from other trees, where some tree of another
species would not have looked far better." One of the great merits of
the tree, its difference of habit, its variation from the ordinary, is
thus urged against it.

[Illustration: The weeping willow in a storm]

I have spoken of the basket willow, which is scientifically _Salix
viminalis_, and an introduction from Europe, as indeed are many of the
family. In my father's nursery grew a great patch of basket willows,
annually cut to the ground to make a profusion of "sprouts," from which
were cut the "tying willows" used to bind firmly together for shipment
bundles of young trees. It was an achievement to be able to take a
six-foot withe, and, deftly twisting the tip of it under the heel to a
mass of flexible fiber, tie this twisted portion into a substantial
loop; and to have this novel wooden rope then endure the utmost pull of
a vigorous man, as he braced his feet against the bundle of trees in
binding the withe upon it, gave an impression of anything but weakness
on the part of the willow.

Who has not admired the soft gray silky buds of the "pussy" willow,
swelling with the spring's impulse, and ripening quickly into a "catkin"
loaded with golden pollen? Nowadays the shoots of this will