JOHN.

No. IX.

Those who have only lived in forest countries, where vast tracts are

shaded by a dense growth of oak, ash, chestnut, hickory, and other trees

of deciduous foliage, which present the most pleasing varieties of

verdure and freshness, can have but little idea of the effect produced

on the feelings by aged forests of pine, composed in a great degree of a

single species, whose towering summits are crowned with one dark green

canopy, which successive seasons find unchanged, and nothing but death

causes to vary. Their robust and gigantic trunks rise an hundred or more

feet high, in purely proportioned columns, before the limbs begin to

diverge; and their tops, densely clothed with long, bristling foliage,

intermingle so closely as to allow of but slight entrance to the sun.

Hence, the undergrowth of such forests is comparatively slight and thin,

since none but shrubs, and plants that love the shade, can flourish

under this perpetual exclusion of the animating and invigorating rays of

the great exciter of the vegetable world. Through such forests, and by

the merest foot-paths, in great part, it was my lot to pass many miles

almost every day; and had I not endeavoured to derive some amusement and

instruction from the study of the forest itself, my time would have been

as fatiguing to me, as it was certainly quiet and solemn. But wherever

nature is, and under whatever form she may present herself, enough is

always proffered to fix attention and produce pleasure, if we will

condescend to observe with carefulness. I soon found that even a

pine-forest was far from being devoid of interest, and shall endeavour

to prove this by stating the result of various observations made during

the time I lived in this situation.

The common pitch, or, as it is generally called, Norway pine, grows from

a seed, which is matured in vast abundance in the large cones peculiar

to the pines. This seed is of a rather triangular shape, thick and heavy

at the part by which it grows from the cone, and terminating in a broad

membranous fan or sail, which, when the seeds are shaken out by the

wind, enables them to sail obliquely through the air to great distances.

Should an old corn-field, or other piece of ground, be thrown out of

cultivation for more than one season, it is sown with pine-seeds by the

winds, and the young pines shoot up as closely and compactly as hemp.

They continue to grow in this manner until they become twelve or fifteen

feet high, until their roots begin to encroach on each other, or until

the stoutest and best rooted begin to overtop so as entirely to shade

the smaller. These gradually begin to fail, and finally dry up and

perish, and a similar process is continued until the best trees acquire

room enough to grow without impediment. Even when the young pines have

attained to thirty or forty feet in height, and are as thick as a man's

thigh, they stand so closely together that their lower branches, which

are all dry and dead, are intermingled sufficiently to prevent any one

from passing between the trees, without first breaking these

obstructions away. I have seen such a wood as that just mentioned,

covering an old corn-field, whose ridges were still distinctly to be

traced, and which an old resident informed me he had seen growing in

corn. In a part of this wood, which was not far from my dwelling, I had

a delightful retreat, that served me as a private study or closet,

though enjoying all the advantages of the open air. A road that had once

passed through the field, and was of course more compacted than any

other part, had denied access to the pine-seeds for a certain distance,

while on each side of it they grew with their usual density. The ground

was covered with the soft layer or carpet of dried pine leaves which

gradually and imperceptibly fall throughout the year, making a most

pleasant surface to tread on, and rendering the step perfectly

noiseless. By beating off with a stick all the dried branches that

projected towards the vacant space, I formed a sort of chamber, fifteen

or twenty feet long, which above was canopied by the densely-mingled

branches of the adjacent trees, which altogether excluded or scattered

the rays of the sun, and on all sides was so shut in by the trunks of

the young trees, as to prevent all observation. Hither, during the hot

season, I was accustomed to retire for the purpose of reading or

meditation; and within this deeper solitude, where all was solitary,

very many of the subsequent movements of my life were suggested or

devised.

From all I could observe, and all the inquiries I could get answered, it

appeared that this rapidly-growing tree does not attain its full growth

until it is eighty or ninety years old, nor does its time of full health

and vigour much exceed an hundred. Before this time it is liable to the

attacks of insects, but these are of a kind that bore the tender spring

shoots to deposit their eggs therein, and their larvae appear to live

principally on the sap, which is very abundant, so that the tree is but

slightly injured. But after the pine has attained its acme, it is

attacked by an insect which deposits its egg in the body of the tree,

and the larva devours its way through the solid substance of the timber;

so that, after a pine has been for one or two seasons subjected to these

depredators, it will be fairly riddled, and, if cut down, is unfit for

any other purpose than burning. Indeed, if delayed too long, it is

poorly fit for firewood, so thoroughly do these insects destroy its

substance. At the same time that one set of insects is engaged in

destroying the body, myriads of others are at work under the bark,

destroying the sap vessels, and the foliage wears a more and more pale

and sickly appearance as the tree declines in vigour. If not cut down,

it eventually dies, becomes leafless, stripped of its bark, and, as the

decay advances, all the smaller branches are broken off; and it stands

with its naked trunk and a few ragged limbs, as if bidding defiance to

the tempest which howls around its head. Under favourable circumstances,

a large trunk will stand in this condition for nearly a century, so

extensive and powerful are its roots, so firm and stubborn the original

knitting of its giant frame. At length some storm, more furious than all

its predecessors, wrenches those ponderous roots from the soil, and

hurls the helpless carcass to the earth, crushing all before it in its

fall. Without the aid of fire, or some peculiarity of situation

favourable to rapid decomposition, full another hundred years will be

requisite to reduce it to its elements, and obliterate the traces of its

existence. Indeed, long after the lapse of more than that period, we

find the heart of the pitch-pine still preserving its original form,

and, from being thoroughly imbued with turpentine, become utterly

indestructible except by fire.

If the proprietor attend to the warnings afforded by the wood-pecker, he

may always cut his pines in time to prevent them from being injured by

insects. The wood-peckers run up and around the trunks, tapping from

time to time with their powerful bill. The bird knows at once by the

sound whether there be insects below or not. If the tree is sound, the

wood-pecker soon forsakes it for another; should he begin to break into

the bark, it is to catch the worm; and such trees are at once to be

marked for the axe. In felling such pines, I found the woodmen always

anxious to avoid letting them strike against neighbouring sound trees,

as they said that the insects more readily attacked an injured tree than

one whose bark was unbroken. The observation is most probably correct;

at least the experience of country folks in such matters is rarely

wrong, though they sometimes give very odd reasons for the processes

they adopt.

A full-grown pine-forest is at all times a grand and majestic object to

one accustomed to moving through it. Those vast and towering columns,

sustaining a waving crown of deepest verdure; those robust and rugged

limbs standing forth at a vast height overhead, loaded with the cones of

various seasons; and the diminutiveness of all surrounding objects

compared with these gigantic children of nature, cannot but inspire

ideas of seriousness, and even of melancholy. But how awful and even

tremendous does such a situation become, when we hear the first wailings

of the gathering storm, as it stoops upon the lofty summits of the pine,

and soon increases to a deep hoarse roaring, as the boughs begin to wave

in the blast, and the whole tree is forced to sway before its power. In

a short time the fury of the wind is at its height, the loftiest trees

bend suddenly before it, and scarce regain their upright position ere

they are again obliged to cower beneath its violence. Then the tempest

literally howls, and amid the tremendous reverberations of thunder, and

the blazing glare of the lightning, the unfortunate wanderer hears

around him the crash of numerous trees hurled down by the storm, and

knows not but the next may be precipitated upon him. More than once have

I witnessed all the grandeur, dread, and desolation of such a scene, and

have always found safety either by seeking as quickly as possible a spot

where there were none but young trees, or, if on a main road, choosing

the most open and exposed situation out of the reach of the large trees.

There, seated on my horse, who seemed to understand the propriety of

such patience, I would quietly remain, however thoroughly drenched,

until the fury of the wind was completely over. To say nothing of the

danger from falling trees, the peril of being struck by the lightning,

which so frequently shivers the loftiest of them, is so great as to

render any attempt to advance at such time highly imprudent.

Like the ox among animals, the pine-tree may be looked upon as one of

the most universally useful of the sons of the forest. For all sorts of

building, for firewood, tar, turpentine, rosin, lamp-black, and a vast

variety of other useful products, this tree is invaluable to man. Nor is

it a pleasing contemplation, to one who knows its usefulness, to observe

to how vast an amount it is annually destroyed in this country, beyond

the proportion that nature can possibly supply. However, we are not

disposed to believe that this evil will ever be productive of very great

injury, especially as coal fuel is becoming annually more extensively

used. Nevertheless, were I the owner of a pine-forest, I should exercise

a considerable degree of care in the selection of the wood for the axe.