Stránka:book 1922.djvu/475

Forestry 445 "A small Red Maple has grown, perchance, far away at the head of some retired valley, a mile from any road, unobserved. It has faithfully discharged all the duties of a maple there, all winter and summer neg- lected none of its economies, but added to its stature in the virtue which belongs to a maple, by a steady growth for so many months, and is much nearer heaven than it was in the spring. It has faithfully husbanded its sap, and afforded a shelter to the wandering bird, has long since ripened its seeds and committed them to the winds. It de- serves well of mapledom. Its leaves have been asking it from time to time in a whisper, 'When shall we redden?' and now in this month of September, this month of traveling, when men are hastening to the sea- side, or the mountains, or the lakes, this modest maple, still without budging an inch, travels in its reputation — runs up its scarlet flag on that hillside, which shows that it finished its summer's work before all other trees, and withdrawn from the contest. At the eleventh hour of the year, the tree which no scrutiny could have detected here when it was most industrious is thus, by the tint of its maturity, by its very blushes, revealed at last to the careless and distant traveler, and leads his thoughts away from the dusty road into those brave solitudes which it inhabits; it flashes out conspicuous with all the virtue and beauty of a maple — Acer ruhrum. We may read its title, or rubric, clear. Its virtues not its sins are as scarlet." (Thoreau.) "Never was a tree more appropriately named than the Red Maple. Its first blossom flushes red in the April sunlight, its keys ripen scarlet in early May, all summer long its leaves swing on crimson or scarlet stems, its young twigs flame in the same colors and later, amid all the brilliancy of the autumnal forest, it stands preeminent and unap- proachable." (Keeler.)