Thus the little acorn sprouts, and from it springs the sturdy oak, which is not only the noblest of trees, but lives hundreds of years.
The trunks and branches of trees are protected by a covering called bark. This bark is thicker near the base or root of the tree than it is higher up among the branches.
On some trees, the bark is very rough and shaggy looking, as on the oak, ash, walnut, and pine; on others, the bark is smooth, as on the beech, apple, and birch.
Some trees live for only a few years, rapidly reaching their full growth, and rapidly decaying. The peach-tree is one of this kind.
Other trees live to a great age. An elm-tree has been known to live for three hundred years; a chestnut-tree, six hundred years; and oaks, eight hundred years.
The baobab-tree of Africa lives to be many hundred years old. There is a yew-tree in England that is known to be over two thousand years old.
The "big trees" of California are the largest in the world, although not of so great an age as some that have been mentioned. The tallest of these trees that has yet been discovered, measures over three hundred and fifty feet in height, and the distance around it near the ground is almost one hundred feet. The age of this tree must be between one thousand five hundred and two thousand years.
Directions for Reading.—Let, pupils pronounce in concert and singly, the following words: corn, stalks, important, form, tall, walnut, horses.
In the fifth paragraph on page 199, why are some and others emphatic?[12]