These questions should be answered orally, the pupils finding the answers from any available source. Many of the questions will properly provoke discussion and difference of opinion.

How do trees affect the rainfall? Why are our Western prairies treeless? What is a timber claim? Where are the tallest trees in the world? To what age do trees live? How is the age of a tree determined? Why is the test not an accurate one? From what trees is sugar obtained? Oil? Wax? Where do they get these substances? When is the resting time of trees? Do evergreens rest? How does a tree act as a pump? Wherein is the great value of the Eucalyptus? Are forest trees cultivated in any countries? Can you name any treeless tracts of South America? Of Europe? Of Asia? At what time do the buds form on trees in our climate? What tree is a symbol of strength? Which one is called "The Lady of the Forest"? What one did the Indians use to make canoes? Why do our trees turn a more brilliant color in autumn than the trees of Europe? What makes the knots in wood? Where does ebony grow? Why is rosewood so called? How do the prevailing winds affect the trees of a given region? What is the distinction between a tree and a bush? What is the most graceful tree of the Northern states? What palm grows in the United States? What trees have determinate trunks? indeterminate? How many leaves do you think there are on a maple

tree? (Select one and estimate by counting the leaves on a small branch.) If they were laid, side by side, how great a space would they cover? If laid in line, how far would they reach? Is the shade of all trees equally cool? Have trees any warmth in winter?

LESSON XXXIII. - THE AMERICAN ELM.

EXERCISE I. MODEL FOR STUDY.

WHITE ELM (Ulmus Americana).

The American elm is one of the most magnificent trees of Eastern United States. From a root, which in old trees spreads much above the surface of the ground, the trunk rises to a considerable height in a single stem. Here it usually divides into two or three principal branches which go off by a gradual and easy curve. These stretch upwards and outwards with an airy sweep become horizontal, the extreme branchlets, and in ancient trees the extreme half of the limb, become pendent, forming a light and regular arch. This graceful curvature and absence of all abruptness in the primary limbs are entirely characteristic of the tree, and enable an observer to distinguish it in winter, and even at night, when standing in relief against the sky. The American elm has three most striking and distinct shapes. The tall Etruscan vase is formed by four or five limbs, separating at twenty or thirty feet from the ground, going up with a gradual divergency to sixty or seventy, and then bending rapidly outward, forming a flat top with a pendent border. The single or compound plume is represented by trees stretching up in a single stem, or two or three parallel limbs to

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the height of seventy, or even a hundred feet, and spreading out in one or two light, feathery plumes. Sometimes the elm assumes a character akin to the oak: this is when it has been transplanted young into an open situation and always remained by itself. It is then a broad, round-headed tree.

The character of the trunk is almost as various as that of the general form of the tree. You sometimes see it a straight, gradually tapering column, shooting up to sixty or seventy feet without a limb; at other times you see it a verdant pillar of foliage feathering from the branches to the ground.

With the earliest spring the outmost and uppermost branches are fringed with numerous bunches of reddish brown blossoms, soon to give place to the soft green of the young leaves. The flowers are in numerous clusters, of from eight to twenty in a cluster, on the sides of the terminal branches. Each flower is supported on a green slender thread, from one-fifth to half an inch long, and consists of a brown cup parted into seven or eight divisions, and containing about eight brown stamens, and a long compressed ovary, surmounted by two short styles. This ripens into a flattened seed-vessel, called a samara, which is winged on every side with a thin fringed border. The flowers appear early in April or even in March, and the samaræ are mature before the expansion of the leaves.

The leaves are on very short petioles, broad ovate, heart-shaped or rounded at base, acuminate at apex, doubly serrate at margin; divided by the midrib into very unequal parts of which the upper is largersomewhat woolly when young, afterwards roughish on both surfaces; usually from two to four inches long,

and one and a half to two and a half broad, but varying extremely in size. The rich green of the leaves turns in autumn to a sober brown, which is sometimes touched with a bright golden yellow.

The elm grows from Nova Scotia to Georgia, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The Washington Elm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is the most famous elm in this country, so-called because under its shade General Washington is said to have first drawn his sword on taking command of the American army. The celebrated Whitefield preached under the shade of this tree in 1744. A single crop of the leaves of this tree, if laid side by side, would cover, it is estimated, two acres of ground. — From Trees and Shrubs of Massachusetts, by George B. Emerson.

What is an Etruscan vase? How many forms of elm trees? Distinguish them. How do the roots of the elm grow, deep or near the surface? Do you know a tree which has the Etruscan form? the round head? the plume? feathery trunk? What time does the elm blossom? What time does it ripen its samaræ ? What is an acuminate apex? serrate margin? doubly serrate? Measure the largest elm in your neighborhood one foot from the ground. Compare any elm that you know with the foregoing description. Make out the skeleton or plan upon which this description was written.

LESSON XXXIV. - THE OAK.

EXERCISE I.

· OUTLINE OF DESCRIPTION.

The writer should verify this outline by some tree that is wellknown, and then write it with whatever changes are needed to make it a correct description of a particular tree.

Size.

Circumference one foot from ground.

Estimate the height of the tree. Height of trunk before branches appear.

or less deeply lobed leaves — lobes round or blunt.

Red Oak Family have deeply cut leaves, with the divisions terminating in a long bristle-like point.

Leaves come out with or just before the flowers; turn brown or scarlet in autumn.

Flowers. - Two kinds, sterile and fertile. Sterile are in long, slender, pendulous catkins, which are in groups. Fertile are small, in a bud-like scaly cup. Flowers appear with or just after the leaves.

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Fruit. Acorns. Different species vary in acorns; some long and slender, others short and round. All acorns grow in cups; these vary. Acorns of White Oak Family are almost sweet and grow in one season. Those of the Red Oak Family require two seasons to come to maturity.

etc.

Varieties of Oak. - Red, black, scarlet, scrub, white, chestnut,

of furniture.

Miscellaneous.

Druids' regard for oak trees.

Oak grove at Dodona. - Oak galls. - Famous oaks. - Poems about oaks.

NOTE. The cherry gives beautiful wood for cabinet work; takes a very high polish. There are three varieties of the maple which are common, sugar, white or silver, and red. May be distinguished by their leaves, also by their blossoms. The twigs and flowers of the red maple are a deep scarlet color in the spring; long before any other flowers appear. Lowell says, "The maple reddens to a coral reef." Both sugar and red maple show the curly and bird's-eye varieties. Hickory gave the well-known sobriquet of General Andrew Jackson. Chestnut is cultivated in the West