No other of our trees, to those who know it in its regions of finest development, makes so strong an appeal to man's imagination—to his love of color, of joyful bearing, of sense of magic, of surprise and change. He walks the woods in June or July and rustles the mass of gold-brown leaves fresh fallen under foot, or rides for unending weeks across the Mendocino ranges—and always with a sense of fresh interest and stimulation at the varying presence of this tree.
W.L. JEPSON,
in Trees of California.
JULY 11.
THE WOODS OF THE WEST.
Oh, woods of the west, leafy woods that I love.
Where through the long days I have heard
The prayer of the wind in the branches above,
And the tremulous song of the bird.
Where the clust'ring blooms of the dog-wood hang o'er—