I RECALL a conversation once held with an obstinate man in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who insisted that we had no persimmons in New Jersey, and was only convinced by reference to Gray's Botany. It is not an unusual occurrence for the New Englander to be in the dark about our Jersey lowlands, and if he was brought here blindfolded would swear he was in the Carolinas, if not farther South. Well, what the people up North know or do not know matters nothing; we do have persimmon-trees, and in abundance. They are in almost every tract of mixed woodland, and often single trees are found along the road-sides. Whether the ground is dry or damp seems to matter little, for the tree is sure in either case to be a thrifty one, even if not very large. In one important respect it is of consequence what the soil is, for every boy will tell you there are persimmons and persimmons: fruit that is never good, and other, when frost-nipped, that is really excellent.

What of the tree itself as it stands in the woodlands of to-day?

Turning to Kalm, the level-headed Swede, who saw more in Jersey than most naturalists have since discovered, I find he associates the tree with wet grounds, “round the water-pits," as he has it; and of the wood itself remarks, it “is very good for joiners' instruments;... but, after being cut down and lain exposed to sunshine and rain, it is the first wood which rots, and in a year's time there is nothing left but what is useless." Let me add, that as firewood it is exasperating, and many an evening has been spoiled for me by having too much of it on the andirons. It is an ebony, according to botanists, and can be used as Kalm mentions; but remember also what he says of it, and gather none for the winter's wood-pile.

If there were but one kind of tree in the world, the forests would be as unattractive as crowded streets. The plain would afford the rambler his best loafing-place, if not his only one. But there are many trees of many kinds, and each has an individuality of its own, quite apparent to him who strolls for pleasure and in a receptive frame of mind. Perhaps this is vague, as it doubtless is nonsense to those who see in trees only so much lumber, so I will restate the case. An oak, a weeping-willow, a holly, and a pine will very differently impress the rambler. When you stop for a moment in your walks, on finding a notably perfect example of any one of these trees, you more than admire its beauty; you fall to thinking in lines that such a tree always suggests. The thought of a tree or trees in the abstract will not obtrude. If it does you are somewhere lacking, or, for the time being, dyspeptic. Oak and strength, willow and grace, cedar and gloom, these are approximately synonymous terms, and not so from your own early associations merely, or through impressions made by what has been told you in childhood. The tree speaks to you. Were this not true, a charm in woodland walks would be lacking. The fact that the motion of the branches is due to the passing breeze should be overlooked, and the rustle of the leaves and murmur that fills every corner of the forest, save where you stand, help in this your fancy. Without a trace of childishness on the rambler's part, the tree before him is greeted as a friend.

Another phase of the subject must be noted, and that is the effect of early association. Here, speaking personally, the persimmon looms up with greater prominence than its position among forest trees calls for, notwithstanding Gray says it sometimes reaches a height of seventy feet. Along the hill-side, in the meadows, and skirting the several huge upland sink-holes are quite a number of persimmon-trees, and when rambling about my one-time country home in summer, I probably quite overlook them. They are not a feature of that season. Every tree about them has been long in leaf, and they are lost in the crowd. But pass this way in the golden days of frosty October. Look through the red-leaved branches or over the brown fields, and spy out at last a tree with branches bare as midwinter of foliage, but laden with golden fruit. It is something to be remembered: a goodly sight, one that rids autumn of the charge of emptiness, of being a season of decay and desolation. Doubtless, if this royal-looking fruit competed with strawberries in June, or later with the good things of August, it would lack a champion; but coming upon the scene after all other fruits have been gathered, it has found many to speak for it, even if never loud in their praises. On the yet green and growing grass I have a pyramid now of this regally golden fruit, and what can be said of it? It is not so brilliant as the crimson winter-berries on the bush above me, nor does it glow like the ruddy fruit of the holly. Even the clustered bitter-sweet, ragged, yet rich in gold and scarlet, is as showy; but then these are not food for man. The persimmon appeals to other senses than that of sight. I fancy every phase of the past summer is in its juices; there are both the torrid noondays and the chilling storms. The extremes from April to October are gathered about its seeds, and not until its wrinkled skin has been thrice grimed with frost will the better elements prevail and the fruit be perfected. Even then there is a lurking imp in every berry, and skill is needed to outwit him. Help be his who rashly bites a green persimmon or crushes the seeds of a ripe one. I have been told that Gray or some one somewhere does or did in a textbook mention this fruit as eaten by pigs and small boys. May I remain so far a small boy to the end that I can eat, with my present relish, wrinkled, frost-nipped persimmons. Eating them means so much. This is no market fruit that has been in others' hands too often before reaching the consumer. Nature has been the farmer and raised a crop after its own notion. The harvest and the feasting are so near as to be one event; the laborer is the small boy, whatever his years, and to what merrier feast has he ever been invited? What though you dine on the threshing-floor? The fruit gathered has not soiled it, and what statelier temple stands than the autumn woods? You are a guest, not an intruder; and now the feast! Does not the persimmon smack of the wild-wood? How little of the tamed orchard or trim garden in its sugary pulp! The town and all that that means is for the moment forgotten, and you are in touch with Nature while you eat.

Long years ago there lived a basket-maker in the meadows, having a railroad switch to look after and willow switches to weave into such shapes as he fancied. He was a curious man, and had he never seen some people I could name, would have been a success. A book might be written about him, but not now; for the present more prominent than he, in my mind, is his wife's persimmon bread. Tastes change, we are told, and I might not like it now, but it was better than the average ginger-cake, and possessed the rare merit of novelty. It was something to boast of, and I did boast, and involved it all with mystery, for no one in all that school knew where the basket-maker lived. Every Saturday, in the season, I secured a persimmon loaf and displayed and shared it with the boys on Monday. Life was worth living then, so persimmons, that helped to make it so, have not lost favor since. How often of late I have spoken of this persimmon bread as a novelty, and there has been none to gainsay me! but it is no novelty after all. In Pickering's “Chronological History of Plants" I find it recorded that De Soto found loaves made of persimmon pulp, “like unto bricks." The basket-maker's cakes were only so far “like unto bricks" as to be of that shape. They were really toothsome.

It would appear, according to Kalm, that in early colonial times the persimmon was not so despised as now; pigs and small boys had their share only, not all. Our author says, “In a great book, which contains a description of Virginia, you meet with different ways of preparing the persimmon," and the older Bartram told him "that they were commonly put upon the table amongst the sweetmeats ;" and again, we have a description of how the English and Swedes, a century and a half ago, brewed “a very palatable liquor." The first step was to bake loaves of persimmon bread, and these were then reduced to a pulp, mixed with malt, and so on, until the beer was ready to be bottled.

Did the persimmon bear no noticeable fruit the tree would not be overlooked by the rambler, because, as Kalm has said, it grows by the water-pits. A tree some fifty feet in height, standing alone, and near water, will not be shunned by birds, and in autumn affords too good an outlook not to be constantly visited. Of course any tree similarly situated will be equally acceptable to birds; but this matters not; I have one huge persimmon in mind that is peculiarly favored. Whether in spring or autumn, as the tree's foliage is very late in appearing and soon drops, there is the one requirement of bare branches, and where these are, there will the birds be. The cedar-birds congregate here when not feeding near by; tree-sparrows gather there and chatter so vehemently, some important matter must be discussed; and well I remember the overstaying warblers that late in November I saw darting over the twigs, hoping their brethren had left a few insects in the crannies of the wrinkled bark. Here, too, as in all lone, way-side persimmon-trees, the sparrow-hawk takes his stand and surveys the grassy haunts and run-ways of field-mice. And as, in midsummer, the “water-pits," with their abundant attractions of curious animal life, often held me throughout the day, here the persimmon-tree again became a prominent feature, because of the shade it threw over and about me.

Although no strange adventure or narrow escape is associated with this tree, and no ugly trick upon strangers, offering them green fruit, pricks me when I gather the frost- ripened harvest, it is a growth of our woodlands that stands prominently forth as I recall days gone by, and what greater merit has any tree or product thereof than the power to withdraw the curtain that conceals those days of other years which we fancy were happier than the present? Think, too, as I hope some time to try, of brewing a beer, as Kalm directs, and, in the middle of a stormy winter night, drinking to the memory of those hardy folk who long ago learned the merits of our Jersey woods; and drink, too, to the Swede who, loving the wild life found here, was good enough to give us a most excellent account of it. In a mug of persimmon beer I drink to Peter Kalm!