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[Illustration: A MOOSE.]
FOREST LIFE
AND
FOREST TREES:
COMPRISING
WINTER CAMP-LIFE AMONG THE
LOGGERS, AND WILD-WOOD
ADVENTURE.
WITH
DESCRIPTIONS OF LUMBERING OPERATIONS ON
THE VARIOUS RIVERS OF MAINE AND
NEW BRUNSWICK.
BY JOHN S. SPRINGER.
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
82 CLIFF STREET.
1851.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand
eight hundred and fifty-one, by
HARPER & BROTHERS,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District
of New York.
PREFACE.
The writer of the following pages was reared among the Pine forests of
Maine, and has spent several of the most pleasant years of his life in
active participation in many of the scenes here delineated.
The incidents he has related are real, and in no case is the truth
sacrificed to fancy or embellishment.
When the author commenced writing, his motive was to indulge somewhat
in pleasant reminiscences of the past, and to live over again that
portion of his life which, in general, was so pleasantly spent among
the wild mountains, forests, lakes, and rivers of Maine. It was during
this retrospective exercise with his pen that the idea of writing a
book, embracing his own experience and observations during the time in
which he participated in the lumberman's life, suggested itself.
Recollecting that, while the life, habits, and adventures of many
classes of men had engaged the attention of the reading community, and
that, among the multitude of narratives issued from the press, nothing
of interest or importance had been put forth exemplifying the life and
adventures of a very large class of persons known as lumbermen, he
naturally became possessed with a desire to entertain others with some
relation of what appeared to him to afford sufficient material for a
book of some interest, and chiefly because the matter it might embrace
had never been presented in a connected detail.
Suggesting the substance of what has already been said to several
intelligent lumbermen, an interest was at once awakened in their
feelings upon the subject, accompanied with an urgent request that the
plan should be prosecuted, and that a work should be prepared which
might make their pursuits, adventures, and hardships more generally
known. To many of these friends the author is also indebted for some
assistance in furnishing statistical matter.
In incorporating the somewhat lengthy notice of Forest Trees, forming
the first part of this volume, the author has ventured to make his own
taste and feelings the criterion by which he has been guided in his
selections and observations for the reader, and although they may not
hold a strict relation to the narrative, he hopes that they may not be
deemed inappropriate or uninteresting.
This volume makes no pretensions to literary merit; sooner would it,
indeed, claim kindred with the wild and uncultivated scenes of which
it is but a simple relation.
In justice to the gentlemen whom he has quoted in arranging the
statistical portion of this volume, as well as to himself, the author
would state that the material was procured some four years ago. The
statement of this fact may account for any discrepancy which may
appear from more recent accounts of the lumbering interests, should
they be found to vary from the representations here made.
THE AUTHOR.
PART I.
TREES OF AMERICA.
PART II.
THE PINE-TREE, OR FOREST LIFE.
PART III.
RIVER LIFE.
CONTENTS.
PART I.
TREES OF AMERICA.
CHAPTER I.
Trees, how regarded by Lumbermen.--Cedars of Lebanon.--Oldest Tree
on Record.--Napoleon's Regard for it.--Dimensions.--Durability of the
Cedar, how accounted for.--The Oak.--Religious Veneration in which
it was held by the Druids.--The Uses to which their Shade was
appropriated.--Curious Valuation of Oak Forests by the Ancient
Saxons.--The Number of Species.--Its Value.--Remarkable old Oak in
Brighton.--Charter Oak.--Button-wood Tree.--Remarkable Rapidity of
its Growth.--Remarkable Size of one measured by Washington.--by
Michaux.--Disease in 1842, '43, and '44.--The Oriental Plane-tree
--Great Favorite with the Ancients.--Cimon's Effort to gratify
the Athenians.--Pliny's Account of its Transportation.--The
Privilege of its Shade a Tax.--Used as an Ornament.--Nourished with
Wine.--Hortensius and Cicero.--Pliny's curious Account of one of
remarkable Size 13
CHAPTER II.
The Elm.--English Elm.--Scotch Elm.--Slippery Elm.--American
Elm.--Superiority of latter.--Different Shapes, how accounted
for.--Great Elm on Boston Common.--Rapidity of Growth.--The Riding
Stick.--Remarkable Dimensions of noted Trees.--Boston Elm again.--
Its Age.--By whom set out.--Washington Elm, why so named.--"Trees
of Peace," a Tribute of Respect.--English Elm in England and
America.--Uses in France.--In Russia.--Birch Family.--Its Variety and
Uses.--The Maple Family.--Number of Species.--Red Maple.--Unrivaled
Beauty of American Forests.--Rock Maple.--Amount of Wood cut from one
in Blandford.--Curious method of distinguishing it from the River
Maple.--Amount and Value of the Sugar in Massachusetts.--Great
Product from one Tree.--Sugar Maple in the State of Maine.--Dr.
Jackson's Reports, &c. 19
CHAPTER III.
Beech-trees.--Purity, Size, Fruit.--Efforts of Bears after the
Nut.--The Uses to which its Leaves are appropriated.--Mr. Lauder's
Testimony, &c.--Use of Wood.--Singular Exemption.--The novel
Appearance of the Leaves of a Species in Germany.--Chestnut-tree
--Remarkable one on Mount AEtna.--Balm of Gilead.--Willow.--Ash.--
Basswood, or Tiel-tree.--The Poplar.--The Hemlock.--Beauties of
its Foliage.--Uses.--Hickory.--The Fir-tree.--Spruce-tree.--Its
conical Form.--Uses.--American Larch.--Success of the Dukes of
Athol in planting it on the Highlands of Scotland 28
PART II.
THE PINE-TREE, OR FOREST LIFE.
CHAPTER I.
The Pines.--White Pines: rank claimed for this Variety.--Predilections.
--Comparison instituted.--Pitch and Norway Pines.--White Pine.--
Magnitude.--New York Pines.--Lambert's Pine on Northwest Coast.--
Varieties.--Its Rank.--Great variety of purposes to which it is
devoted.--Great Pine near Jackson Lake.--Capital Invested.--Hands
employed on the Penobscot 37
CHAPTER II.
The Pine twenty-five Years ago.--Its rapid
Disappearance.--Explorations.--Outfit.--Up-river Journeying.--Its
Distance.--Mode of Nightly Encampment.--Cooking.--Disturbed Slumbers.
--Ludicrous Fright.--Deer.--Encounter with Bears.--Mode of Exploring.
--Forest Observatory.--Climbing Trees.--The Emotions excited by
the View.--Necessity of Compass.--Nature's Compass.--The Return.--
Annoyances from mischievous Bears.--Stumpage.--Permits.--Outfit
and Return.--Crossing Carrying-places.--A Strong Man.--Skill of
Boatmen.--Item of personal Experience.--Blind Path.--A Family in
the Wilderness.--Things to be considered in locating Camps 44
CHAPTER III.
Method of constructing Camp and
Hovel.--Timber.--Covering.--Arrangement of Interior.--The Bed.--
Deacon Seat.--Ingenious Method of making a Seat.--Cooking: superior
Method of Baking.--The nightly Camp Fire.--Liabilities from taking
Fire.--A Camp consumed.--Men burned to Death.--Enjoyment.--The new
Camp: Dedication.--A Song.--A Story.--New Order in Architecture.--
Ox Hovel.--Substitute for Lime.--The Devotedness of the Teamster.
--Fat and lean Cattle.--Swamping Roads.--Clumps of Pine.--The points
of Interest in a Logging Road.--The Teamster's Path.--Regret.--The
peculiar Enjoyment of Men thus engaged 65
CHAPTER IV.
Tokens of Winter.--The Anticipation.--Introduction of Team.--
Difficulties attending it.--Uncomfortable Boating.--The Contrast.
--Method of crossing Streams and Rivers.--The Docility of the Ox.
--Facilities of Turnpikes.--Stopping-places.--Arrival.--An
Adventure.--Ten Oxen in the Ice.--Method of taking them Out.--An
uncomfortable Night.--The midnight Excursion.--Oxen running at large
in the Wilderness.--Developments of Memory.--Logging.--Division of
Labor.--How to manage in the absence of a Cook.--"Uncle Nat."--
Anecdote.--Felling Pines.--Ingenuity of Choppers.--Preparatory
Arrangements.--The Bob-sled.--Method of Operation described.--
The Excitement.--Comparison.--Immediate Length of Pine-trees.
--Conclusion 83
CHAPTER V.
The Skill and Enterprise of Lumbermen.--Method of taking Logs down
Hills and Mountains.--Dry Sluice.--Stern Anchor.--Giant Mountain
Steps.--Alpine Lumbering.--Warping a Team down Steeps.--Trial of
Skill and Strength.--The rival Load.--Danger and Inconvenience of
Hills in Logging Roads.--A distressing Accident.--Solemn Conclusion
of a Winter's Work.--Some of the Perils attendant upon Lumbering.--
A fearful Wound.--Narrow Escape.--The buried Cap.--The safest Way
of Retreat.--A Sabbath in the Logging Camp.--Sunday Morning
Naps.--Domestic Camp Duties.--Letter Writing.--Recreations.--Sable
Traps.--Deer and Moose.--Bear Meat.--A rare Joke.--Moose Hunt.--
Bewildered Hunters.--Extraordinary Encounter.--Conclusion of
Sabbath in the Woods 100
CHAPTER VI.
Camp Life.--Winter Evenings.--An Evening in Camp.--Characters.--
Card-playing.--A Song.--Collision with wild Beasts.--The unknown
Animal in a Dilemma.--"Indian Devil."--The Aborigines' Terror.--A
shocking Encounter.--The Discovery and Pursuit.--The Bear as an
Antagonist.--Their thieving Propensities.--A thrilling Scene in the
Night.--A desperate Encounter with three Bears 129
CHAPTER VII.
Provision Teams.--Liabilities.--A Night in the Woods.--Traveling
on Ice.--A Span of Horses lost.--Pat's Adventure.--Drogers' Caravan.
--Horses in the Water.--Recovery of a sunken Load.--Returning
Volunteers from Aroostook.--Description of a Log Tavern.--Perils
on Lakes in Snow-storms.--Camping at Night.--Rude Ferry-boats 142
PART III.
RIVER LIFE.
CHAPTER I.
"Breaking Up."--Grotesque Parading down River.--Rum and Intemperance.
--Religious Rites profaned.--River-driving on Temperance Principles.
--The first Experiment.--A spiritual Song 149
CHAPTER II.
Log-landing.--Laborious Exposure.--Damming Streams.--Exciting
Scenes.--Log-riding.--Fun.--Breaking a Dry-landing.--A sudden
Death.--Thrilling Scenes on the "Nesourdnehunk."--Lake-driving.--
Steam Tow-boat.--Remarks on Lake Navigation.--Driving the main
River.--Union of Crews.--Substantial Jokes.--Log Marks.--Dangers
of River-driving.--Sad Feelings over the Grave of a River-driver.
--Singular Substitute for a Coffin.--Burial of a River-driver.--
A Log Jam.--Great Excitement.--A Boat swamped.--A Man drowned.--
Narrow Escape.--Mode of Living on the River.--Wangun.--Antidote
for Asthma.--The Wangun swamped.--An awful Struggle.--The
miraculous Escape.--Driving among the Islands.--Amusing Exertions
at identifying.--Consummation of Driving.--The Claims of lumbering
Business for greater Prominence.--The Boom 155
CHAPTER III.
Observations on the St. Croix River.--Boundary Line.--Pine Timber.
--Agriculture in the Interior.--Youthful Associations with Grand
Lake.--Traditionary Name of Grand Lake.--Lake Che-pet-na-cook.--
Rise of Eastern Branch St. Croix.--Lumbering Prospects.--Hemlock.
--Reciprocal Relations of the Lumber Trade between Americans and
Provincials.--The Machias Rivers.--Origin of Name.--Character of
Soil.--Lumber Resources and Statistics.--West Machias.--Narraguagues
River, curious Definition of.--Capacity of Stream.--Statistics.--
Union River.--Observations on its Lumbering Interests.--Mills in
Franklin 176
CHAPTER IV.
Penobscot River.--Its various Names.--Character of the Country through
which it flows.--Its Length.--The vast Extent of Territory which it
drains.--Its Multitude of Lakes.--Mount Ktaadn.--Indian Legend.--
Elevation of the Mountain.--Overwhelming Prospect.--A Sabbath in
the Wilderness.--Moose in the Lake.--An uncomfortable Night.--Dr.
Jackson's Narrative.--New Lumber Resources.--The interesting Origin
of this new Resource.--John Bull outwitted.--Freshets on the
Penobscot.--Freshet of 1846, cause of it.--Sudden Rise of Water.
--Bangor submerged.--Bowlders of Ice.--Destruction of Property.--
Narrow Escape of Ferry-boat.--Peril of Boys.--Editorial Observations.
--Lumber Statistics.--Where the Lumber finds a Market.--Speculations
on future Prospects of Lumbering Interests.--Anticipations of the
Future.--Bangor 186
CHAPTER V.
Length of Kennebeck.--Moose-head Lake.--Its peculiar Shape.--Its
Islands.--Burned Jacket.--Interesting Deposit.--Mount Kineo.--The
Prospect from its Summit.--Moose River.--Old Indian.--The Banks of
the Kennebeck.--Beauties of the Country, &c.--Lumber on Dead River.
--Falls at Waterville.--Skowhegan Falls.--Arnold's Encampment.--
Nau-lau-chu-wak.--Caritunk Falls.--Lumber.--Statistics.--Author's
Acknowledgments.--Androscoggin.--Course and other Peculiarities.
--A question of Rivalry.--Water Power.--Original Indications.--
Interesting Sketch of Rumford Falls.--Estimated Water Power.--
Lumber Statistics.--Droughts and Freshets.--Umbagog Lake.--The
serpentine Megalloway.--Granite Mountains.--Beautiful Foliage.--
Romantic Falls.--Character of Country.--Manner of Life in
Log-cutting, &c.--Statistics, &c.--Presumpscot River, great
Water-powers of.--Warmth of Water.--Statistical Remarks.--Saco
River 227
CHAPTER VI.
NEW BRUNSWICK.
Object of the Chapter.--Description of St. John's River.--First
Falls.--Contiguous Country.--"Mars Hill."--Prospect.--Grand Falls.
--The Acadians, curious Facts respecting them.--The Mirimachi
River.--Immense amount of Timber shipped.--Riots.--State of
Morals.--The great Mirimachi Fire.--Hurricane.--Destruction of
Human Life.--Area of the Fire.--Vessels in Harbor.--Painfully
disgusting Sights.---Destruction among Fish.--Fire, rapidity of
Progress.--Curious instance of Escape.--Ristigouche River, its
Length.--Capacious Harbor.--Appearance of the Country.--High
Banks.--Groves of Pine.--A Statistical Table 244
LIST OF ENGRAVINGS.
Frontispiece--Moose Deer.
Shooting Deer--Black Bear 49
Winter Quarters of Lumbermen 69
Log Hauling--Process of Loading Logs 95
The Common Wolf 113
Log Tavern in the Wilderness 146
River Drivers Breaking a Jam 165
A Coaster ascending the Penobscot for Lumber 187
View of the Penobscot--Forests and Lakes northeast from Ktaadn 189
Northeast View of Mount Ktaadn, from the west Branch of the
Penobscot 199
Godfrey's Falls, on the Seboois River 208
Chase's Mountain, as seen from Sugar-loaf Mountain 211
Sugar-loaf Mountain, on the Seboois River 225
View of Lily Bay, on Moose-head Lake 228
Skowhegan Falls, on the Kennebeck 231
Rumford Falls, on the Androscoggin 235
View of Umbagog Lake--Source of the Androscoggin 237
Frye's Falls, on a Tributary of Ellis River 238
Rumford Bridge, Androscoggin River 239
Aroostook Falls 250
FOREST LIFE AND FOREST TREES.
PART I.
CHAPTER I.
Trees, how regarded by Lumbermen.--Cedars of Lebanon.--Oldest Tree
on Record.--Napoleon's Regard for it.--Dimensions.--Durability of
the Cedar, how accounted for.--The Oak.--Religious Veneration in
which it was held by the Druids.--The Uses to which their Shade was
appropriated.--Curious Valuation of Oak Forests by the Ancient
Saxons.--The Number of Species.--Its Value.--Remarkable old Oak in
Brighton.--Charter Oak.--Button-wood Tree.--Remarkable Rapidity of
its Growth.--Remarkable Size of one measured by Washington.--by
Michaux.--Disease in 1842, '43, and '44.--The Oriental Plane-tree.
--Great Favorite with the Ancients.--Cimon's Effort to gratify the
Athenians.--Pliny's Account of its Transportation.--The Privilege
of its Shade a Tax.--Used as an Ornament.--Nourished with Wine.--
Hortensius and Cicero.--Pliny's curious Account of one of remarkable
Size.
Lumbermen are accustomed to classify and rate forest trees by the
lower, middle, and higher grades, just as animals are classified, from
the muscle, through the intermediate grades, up to man, the crowning
master-piece of the Creator's skill. But while man is universally
recognized as first in the scale of animated nature, there is less
uniformity of sentiment in respect to trees, as to which is entitled
to hold the first rank in the vegetable kingdom. In the days of King
David and Solomon, the noble Cedars of Lebanon held the pre-eminence,
and were celebrated in verse as emblems of beauty, grandeur, and
especially of durability; but "with the moderns the Cedar is
emblematical of sadness and mourning":
"Dark tree! still sad when others' grief is fled--
The only constant mourner of the dead."--BYRON.
"Perhaps the oldest tree on record is the Cypress of Somma, in
Lombardy. It is supposed to have been planted in the year of the birth
of Christ, and on that account is looked upon with reverence by the
inhabitants; but an ancient chronicle at Milan is said to prove that
it was a tree in the time of Julius Caesar, B.C. 42. It is one hundred
and twenty-three feet high, and twenty-three feet in circumference at
one foot from the ground. Napoleon, when laying down the plan for his
great road over the Simplon, diverged from a straight line to avoid
injuring this tree."[1]
[1] Mass. Reports.
"The Cedar was styled the glory of Lebanon. The Temple of Solomon and
that of Diana at Ephesus were built of this wood. The number of these
trees is now greatly diminished. They were often of vast size,
sometimes girting thirty-six feet, perfectly sound, with a lofty
height, whose spreading branches extended one hundred and ten feet."
The durability of the Cedar is said to be attributable to two
qualities: "1st, the bitterness of the wood, which protects it from
the depredations of worms; and, 2dly, its resin, which preserves it
from the injuries of the weather."
To the _Oak_ some assign the first rank. It is celebrated in the East,
and by many of the ancients was regarded with _religious_ veneration.
In the West, and by moderns, it is employed more as an emblem of the
strength, compactness, and durability of the state.
"The religious veneration paid to this tree by the original natives of
Britain, in the time of the Druids, is well known to every reader of
British history." The patriarch Abraham resided under an Oak, or a
grove of Oaks; and it is believed that he planted a grove of this
tree. "In fact, since, in hot countries, nothing is more desirable
than shade--nothing more refreshing than the shade of a tree--we may
easily suppose the inhabitants would resort for such enjoyment to
"Where'er the Oak's thick branches spread
A deeper, darker shade."
Oaks, and groves of Oaks, were esteemed proper places for religious
services; so that while the Methodist denomination may not claim
originality in holding grove or camp-meetings, they may, at least,
plead the usages of antiquity in their defense. Altars were set up
under them; affairs of state were discussed and ratified under their
ample shade.
"Abimelech was made king under an Oak." "Absalom rode upon a mule
which went under the thick boughs of a great Oak, and his head caught
hold of the Oak, and he was taken up between the heaven and the
earth," and, while there suspended, was slain by Joab and his
armor-bearers.
"In England, whose Oak forests are now one of the sources of national
wealth and naval supremacy, the tree was once prized only for the
acorns, which were the chief support of those large herds of swine
whose flesh formed so considerable a part of the food of the Saxons.
Woods of old, says Burnett, were valued according to the number of
hogs they could fatten; and so rigidly were the forest lands surveyed,
that, in ancient records, such as the Doomsday-book, woods are
mentioned of a single hog. The right of feeding hogs in woods, called
pannage, formed, some centuries ago, one of the most valuable kinds of
property. With this right monasteries were endowed, and it often
constituted the dowry of the daughters of the Saxon kings."[2]
[2] Mass. Reports, Trees, &c.
Of the Oak some naturalists have enumerated twenty-four species. The
wood of the White Oak is distinguished by three properties, which give
to it its great value: hardness, toughness, and durability. The great
variety of purposes to which it is appropriated shows it to be a tree
of great value. For ship and carriage building, and in the manufacture
of implements of husbandry, it is very valuable. This tree also holds
rank on account of its size. In the "Report on the Trees and Shrubs of
Massachusetts," notice is given of one still standing in Brighton. "In
October, 1845, it measured twenty-five feet and nine inches in
circumference at the surface. At three feet, it is twenty-two feet
four inches; at six feet, fifteen feet two inches. It tapers gradually
to the height of about twenty-five feet, where the stump of its
ancient top is visible, below which point four or five branches are
thrown out, which rise twenty or thirty feet higher. Below, the places
of many former limbs are covered over by immense gnarled and bossed
protuberances. The trunk is hollow at the base, with a large opening
on the southwest, through which boys and men may easily enter. It had
probably passed its prime centuries before the first English voice was
heard on the shores of Massachusetts Bay. It is still clad with
abundant foliage, and, if respected as its venerable age deserves, it
may stand an object of admiration for centuries to come."
The Charter Oak, in Hartford, Connecticut, is said to measure at the
ground thirty-six feet; and in the smallest place above it is eight
feet four inches in diameter.
THE BUTTON-WOOD TREE.
This tree is "remarkable for the rapidity of its growth, especially
when standing near water. Loudon mentions one which, standing near a
pond, had in twenty years attained the height of eighty feet, with a
trunk eight feet in circumference at three feet from the ground, and a
head of the diameter of forty-eight feet." "Nowhere is this tree more
vigorous than along the rivers of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and
especially on the Ohio and its tributaries." 'General Washington
measured a Button-wood growing on an island in the Ohio, and found its
girth, at five feet from the ground, about forty feet.' "In 1802, the
younger Michaux and his companions found a large tree of this kind on
the right bank of the Ohio, thirty-six miles from Marietta. Its base
was swollen in an extraordinary manner, but, at four feet from the
ground, its circumference was found to be forty-seven feet," or
fifteen feet and eight inches in diameter. It is said that "it may be
propagated with more ease than any tree of the forest." "It is
valuable stove fuel." S. W. Pomeroy, Esq., a writer in the New England
Farmer, expresses the opinion that, on land possessing the same
fertility, this tree will furnish fuel which will give the greatest
amount of caloric to the acre, except the locust on dry soil.
It will be remembered that in 1842, '43, and '44, this tree appeared
to be under the influence of a general blight throughout the Eastern
States. Various opinions were entertained respecting the cause of the
malady which occasioned so much regret. "By most persons it was
considered the effect of frost, supposing the tree not to have matured
its wood, viz., the new shoots, during the previous summer, so that it
was incapable of resisting the effect of frost." Others ascribed it to
the action of some insect or worm, and others believed it to be some
unaccountable disease, while others regarded the phenomenon as a
providential token of the approach of some important event unknown and
unanticipated. The tree has now pretty generally recovered from its
malady.
"The Oriental Plane-tree holds the same place on the Eastern continent
which our Button-wood does on this." "It was the greatest favorite
among the ancients." "Cimon sought to gratify the Athenians by
planting a public walk with them." "It was considered the finest shade
tree in Europe." "Pliny tells the story of its having been brought
across the Ionian Sea, to shade the tomb of Diomedes, in the island of
the hero. From thence it was taken to Sicily, then to Italy; from
Italy to Spain, and even into the most remote parts of the then
barbarous France, where the natives were made to pay for the privilege
of sitting under its shade.
"No tree was ever so great a favorite with the Romans. They ornamented
their villas with it, valuing it above all other trees for the depth
of its salutary shade, &c. They nourished it with pure wine; and
Hortensius is related to have begged of his rival, Cicero, to exchange
turns with him in a cause in which they were engaged, that he might
himself do this office for a tree he had planted in his Tusculanum."
"Pliny describes some of the most remarkable planes. In the walks of
the Academy at Athens were trees whose trunks were about forty-eight
feet from the ground to the branches. In his own time there was one in
Lycia, near a cool fountain by the road side, with a cavity of
eighty-one feet circuit within its trunk, and a forest-like head, and
arms like trees overshadowing broad fields. Within this apartment,
made by moss-covered stones, to resemble a grotto, Licinius Mucianus
thought it a fact worthy of history, that he dined with nineteen
companions, and slept there too, not regretting splendid marbles,
pictures, and golden-fretted roofs, and missing only the sound of rain
drops pattering on the leaves."[3]
[3] Emerson's Reports.
CHAPTER II.
The Elm.--English Elm.--Scotch Elm.--Slippery Elm.--American Elm.
--Superiority of latter.--Different Shapes, how accounted for.--
Great Elm on Boston Common.--Rapidity of Growth.--The Riding
Stick.--Remarkable Dimensions of noted Trees.--Boston Elm again.--
Its Age.--By whom set out.--Washington Elm, why so named.--"Trees
of Peace," a Tribute of Respect.--English Elm in England and
America.--Uses in France.--In Russia.--Birch Family.--Its Variety
and Uses.--The Maple Family.--Number of Species.--Red Maple.--Unrivaled
Beauty of American Forests.--Rock Maple.--Amount of Wood cut from
one in Blandford.--Curious method of distinguishing it from the River
Maple.--Amount and Value of the Sugar in Massachusetts.--Great Product
from one Tree.--Sugar Maple in the State of Maine.--Dr. Jackson's
Reports, &c.
THE ELM-TREE.
Of this family there are several varieties. The American, the English,
the Scotch, and Slippery Elm. Of this enumeration, the American Elm
stands first in point of ornament, while the timber of the English Elm
is esteemed more highly on account of the toughness of the wood.
It has been well said that the Elm is a tree deservedly esteemed for
its ornament and shade. "The American Elm assumes many different
shapes, and all of them beautiful. Of these, three are most striking
and distinct. 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." "Transplanting the
Elm, it is said, often produces in it a character akin to that of the
Oak. It is then a broad, round-headed tree." "Of this kind is the
'Great Elm' on Boston Common."
Few trees of other species are to be found standing near the abodes of
civilized life which have attained the vast dimensions of the Elm.
Whatever may have been the peculiar properties of other trees, they
have disappeared. Upturned by the passing hurricane, or leveled by the
woodman's ax, they have passed away, while the Elm stands at our doors
associated with the history and memory of the different generations
which, like its autumnal sheddings, have long time ago mingled with
the dust.
The Elm grows with great rapidity, which, in addition to its beauty as
an ornament, secures for it the favor of man. "I once heard," says the
author of Massachusetts Reports, &c., an old man, standing under the
shade of a tree nearly two feet in diameter, which towered above all
around it, say, "This tree, after I had been many years successful in
business, and in a change of fortune had retired to this farm, with a
little that remained, I stuck into the ground after I had used it as a
stick in a ride of eight miles from P."
"From its having been so long a favorite, it has been more frequently
spared, and oftener transplanted than any other tree. There are, in
all parts of the state, many fine old trees standing." "In
Springfield, in a field a few rods north of the hotel, is an Elm which
was twenty-five feet and nine inches in circumference at three feet
from the ground." The great Elm on Boston Common measures, at the same
distance from the ground, seventeen feet eleven inches in
circumference. "It is said to have been planted about the year 1670,
by Captain Daniel Henchman, an ancestor of Governor Hancock. It is,
therefore, more than one hundred and seventy-five years old." "There
is an Elm in Hatfield, near the town-house, which measures at the
ground forty-one feet; at three and one half feet from the ground it
measures twenty-seven feet in circumference. The smallest place in the
trunk is seven feet four inches in diameter. The top spreads over an
area of one hundred and eight feet in diameter, making a circle of
three hundred and twenty-four feet, covering a surface of over seven
thousand five hundred square feet." "The Washington Elm, in
Cambridge--so called because beneath its shade, or near it, General
Washington is said to have first drawn his sword on taking the command
of the American army--measured, in 1842, fifteen feet two inches at
one foot, thirteen feet two at three feet from the ground. The
celebrated Whitfield preached under the shade of this tree in 1744."
"Two Elms were set out by the Indians in front of the house of the
Rev. Oliver Peabody, who succeeded, in 1722, to the venerable Eliot,
the Indian apostle, in the same truly Christian ministry, in Natick,"
Massachusetts. "This voluntary offering of the grateful savages they
called Trees of Peace."
There is an Elm standing in front of Mr. J. Chickering's house,
Westford, Massachusetts, which I recently measured eighteen inches
from the ground. Its circumference was twenty feet, and its _spurs_
were not prominent, as will be inferred from the fact that at four
feet from the ground it measured eighteen feet in circumference. Seven
and a half feet from the ground it divides into two branches, each of
itself a very large trunk, the largest of which would measure three
feet and a half in diameter. Seven or eight feet from the first
division, at short intervals, the main branch, which grew on the west
side next the house, divides into eight more branches, all nearly
equal in size, and averaging a circumference of four and a half feet.
About forty feet from the base of the tree these eight branches
subdivide into twenty-one other branches, and so on indefinitely to
the terminating twigs. The east main branch was divided into four
principals, equal in size to the corresponding ones on the other side,
and were subdivided also in the same manner as the one described.
In height it is about seventy feet, vase-topped, with a pendent
border. The extent of the spreading branches, northwest and southeast,
was one hundred and five feet; those corresponding with the exact
opposite points of the compass extended ninety-five feet, giving an
area of three hundred feet in circumference. Some of the pendent
branches, which drooped within a few feet of the ground, I judged to
be forty feet in length. These, stretched to a horizontal position,
would give a breadth of one hundred and eighty feet to the top.
Various opinions obtain respecting the number of solid feet it
contains, ranging from nine to eleven hundred.
An old gentleman residing in the immediate vicinity, now eighty years
old, told us that he could very well remember it when but a small
tree, from which we infer its age to be about one hundred years. It
appears to be perfectly sound, and now thrives as vigorously as a
young sapling. It is a magnificent specimen of the vegetable kingdom,
majestically imposing, awakening in the spectator a feeling of
veneration in spite of himself. So ample is its wide-spreading
Etruscan-shaped top, that at fifty rods' distance (were the trunk hid)
one might mistake it for a group of twenty good-sized trees.
"The Slippery Elm has a strong resemblance to the common Elm. It has
less of the drooping appearance, and is commonly a much smaller tree."
"The inner bark of this Elm contains a great quantity of mucilage.
Flour prepared from the bark, by drying perfectly and grinding, and
mixed with milk, like arrowroot, is a wholesome and nutritious food
for infants and invalids." "Dr. Darlington says that, in the last war
with Great Britain, the soldiers on the Canada frontier found this, in
times of scarcity of forage, a grateful and nutritious food for their
horses."
'The English Elm is said to have been introduced by importation, and
planted by a wheel-wright for his own use in making hubs for wheels,
for which purpose they are probably superior to any other wood known.'
In its appearance it is said to have 'less grace than the American
Elm, but more stateliness and grandeur.' 'It is distinguished from the
American Elm, also, by the rough, broken character of its bark, which
is darker, and also by having one principal stem, which soars upward
to a great height, and the boldness and abruptness with which it
throws out its branches. The leaves are of a darker color, smaller,
and closer.'
'The largest dimensions given of the English Elm on the Continent is
sixty feet high, and twenty feet in circumference at the ground,
containing two hundred and sixty-eight feet of timber.' "The Crawley
Elm stands in the village of Crawley, on the high road from London to
Brighton. Its trunk measures sixty-one feet in circumference at the
ground, and thirty-five feet round the _inside_ at two feet from the
base. This tree is not so large as would seem from this account, as it
diminishes very rapidly upward."
"The noblest and most beautiful English Elms in this country are found
in Roxbury, the largest of which measures fifteen feet five inches
five feet from the ground; it holds its size fully to the height of
twenty or twenty-five feet, where it divides into three large
branches, the main central one of which rises upward to a height much
above one hundred feet." "As among the ancient Romans, so in France at
the present day, the leaves and shoots are used to feed cattle. In
Russia, the leaves of a species of the Elm are used as a substitute
for tea. The inner bark is in some places made into mats, and in
Norway they kiln-dry it, and grind it with corn as an ingredient in
bread."
THE BIRCH.
Of the Birch family there are several varieties, called the Black,
Yellow, Red, Canoe, the Gray, and the Dwarf. Of these the Yellow and
Canoe Birches are the most interesting and useful. The general
outlines of the Yellow Birch often resemble the Elm, the root-spurs
rise high up the trunk, protruding much beyond the regular circle of
its shaft. It is very firmly rooted, capable of withstanding a violent
blast. It attains to the height of seventy or eighty feet, and often
measures from nine to ten feet in circumference three and four feet
from the ground. Its wood is very useful for cabinet purposes, and is
excellent for fuel.
The White or Canoe Birch is most remarkable for the beautiful thin
sheets of bark which it affords, from which the Indian canoe is
constructed. It also makes excellent covering for a tent. In some
parts of the northern regions it is said to attain a diameter of six
or seven feet.
The White Birch possesses "in an eminent degree the lightness and
airiness of the Birch family, spreading out its glistening leaves on
the ends of a very slender and often pencil spray, with an
indescribable softness. So that Coleridge might have called it as he
did the corresponding European species,
"Most beautiful
Of forest trees--the lady of the woods."
THE MAPLE-TREE.
This family is very numerous. "Nearly forty species are known, of
which ten belong to the United States." 'The climate of New England is
peculiarly favorable to their growth, as is shown by the perfection to
which several of the most valuable species attain.' The Red Maple is
most remarkable for the varying color of its leaves, which greatly
beautify forest scenery. The leaves begin to turn in the latter part
of summer and during the earlier part of autumn, from green to a deep
crimson or scarlet. The forests of no other country present so
beautiful a variety of coloring as our own; 'even corresponding
climates with the same families bear no comparison.' The difference is
said to depend "on the greater transparency of our atmosphere, and
consequently greater intensity of the light; for the same cause which
renders a much larger number of stars visible by night, and which
clothes our flowering plants with more numerous flowers, and those of
deeper, richer tints, gives somewhat of tropical splendor to our
really colder parallels of latitude."
Of the Maple family we may briefly notice only one more, the Rock
Maple, "which in all respects is the most remarkable tree of the
family." While young, it is justly admired for its ornamental beauties
as a shrub. When in a state of maturity, "for the purposes of art, no
native wood possesses more beauty or a greater variety of appearance."
"In the forest the Rock Maple often attains great height, and produces
a large quantity of timber. A tree in Blandford, which was four feet
through at base and one hundred and eight feet high, yielded seven
cords and a half of wood." It is said that the wood of this tree may
be easily distinguished from the Red, or the River Maple, by pouring a
few drops of sulphate of iron upon it. This wood turns greenish; that
of the two former turns to a deep blue.
"In Massachusetts, between five and six hundred thousand pounds of
sugar are annually made from the juice of the Rock Maple, valued at
about eight cents a pound," yielding a revenue of about forty-four to
fifty thousand dollars per annum. Of the sap, "the average quantity to
a tree is from twelve to twenty-four gallons each season. In some
instances it is much greater. A tree in Bernardstown, about six feet
in diameter, favorably situated, produced in one instance a barrel of
sap in twenty-four hours." "Dr. Rush cites an instance of twenty
pounds and one ounce of sugar having been made within nine days, in
1789, from a single tree in Montgomery county, New York." In another
instance, thirty-three pounds are said to have been produced from one
tree in one season. A gentleman from Leverett informs me that in one
season he obtained from one tree one hundred and seventy-five gallons
of sap, which, if of average strength, would have made forty-three
pounds of sugar.
The following remarks upon the Sugar Maple of Maine, from the "Third
Annual Report" of Dr. Jackson's geological surveys in this state, will
be read with interest, suggesting profitable hints to some. "The Acer
Saccharinum, or Sugar Maple, is one of the most luxuriant and
beautiful native forest trees in Maine, and abounds wherever the soil
is of good quality. Its ascending sap is very rich in sugar, which is
very readily obtained by means of a tap, bored with an augur half an
inch in diameter, into the sap-wood of the tree, the sap being
collected in the spring of the year, when it first begins to ascend,
and before the foliage puts forth. It is customary to heap snow around
the roots or stumps of the trees, to prevent their putting forth their
leaves so soon as they otherwise would, for the juices of the tree
begin to be elaborated as soon as the foliage is developed, and will
not run.
"After obtaining a quantity of Maple sap, it is poured into large iron
or tinned copper kettles, and boiled down to a thick sirup; and after
ascertaining that it is sufficiently concentrated to crystallize or
grain, it is thrown into casks or vats, and when the sugar has formed,
the molasses is drained off through a plug-hole slightly obstructed by
tow. But little art is used in clarifying the sirup, and the chemist
would regard the operations as very rude and clumsy; yet a very
pleasant sugar, with a slightly acid taste, is made, and the molasses
is of excellent flavor, and is largely used during the summer for
making sweetened water, which is a wholesome and delicious beverage.
"The sugar frequently contains oxide of iron, which it dissolves from
the rusty potash kettles in which it is commonly boiled down, and
hence it turns tea black. A neat manufacturer will always take care to
scour out his kettles with vinegar and sand, so that the sugar may be
white. He will also take care not to burn the sirup by urging the fire
toward the end of the operation. If his sirup is acid, a little clear
lime-water will saturate it, and the lime will principally separate
with the molasses or with the scum. The sirup should be skimmed
carefully during the operation. It is not worth while, perhaps, to
describe the process of refining sugar; but it is perfectly easy to
make Maple sugar as white as the best double-refined loaf-sugar of
commerce. It would, however, lose its peculiar acid flavor, which now
distinguishes it from ordinary cane sugar.
"Were it generally known how productive are the groves of Sugar
Maples, we should, I doubt not, be more careful, and not exterminate
them from the forest, as is now too frequently done. It is, however,
difficult to spare any forest trees in clearing a farm by fire; but
groves in which they abound might be spared from the unrelenting ax of
the woodman. Maple-trees may also be cultivated, and will become
productive in twenty or thirty years; and it would certainly be one of
our most beautiful pledges of regard for posterity to plant groups of
Maples in convenient situations upon our lands, and to line the road
sides with them. I am sure that such a plan, if carried into effect,
would please public _taste_ in more ways than one, and we might be in
part disfranchised from dependence on the cane plantations of the West
Indies.
"The following statistics will serve as an example of the products of
the Sugar Maple in Maine; and it will also be noted that the whole
work of making Maple sugar is completed in three or four weeks from
the commencement of operations.
Lbs. sugar.
At the Forks of the Kennebeck, twelve persons made 3,650
On No. 1, 2d Range, one man and a boy made 1,000
In Farmington, Mr. Titcomb made 1,500
In Moscow, thirty families made 10,500
In Bingham, twenty families made 9,000
In Concord, thirty families made 11,000
________
36,650
"This, at twelve and a half cents a pound, would be worth $4,581.
"It must be also remarked, that the manufacture of Maple sugar is
carried on at a season of the year when there is little else to be
done; and if properly-shaped evaporating vessels were used, a much
larger quantity of sugar could be made in the season."
CHAPTER III.
Beech-trees.--Purity, Size, Fruit.--Efforts of Bears after the
Nut.--The Uses to which its Leaves are appropriated.--Mr. Lauder's
Testimony, &c.--Use of Wood.--Singular Exemption.--The novel
Appearance of the Leaves of a Species in Germany.--Chestnut-tree.
--Remarkable one on Mount AEtna.--Balm of Gilead.--Willow.--Ash.
--Basswood, or Tiel-tree.--The Poplar.--The Hemlock.--Beauties
of its Foliage.--Uses.--Hickory.--The Fir-tree.--Spruce-tree.--
Its conical Form.--Uses.--American Larch.--Success of the Dukes
of Athol in planting it on the Highlands of Scotland.
The Beech is a tree of no ordinary interest; first, as being more free
from impurities than any tree with which we are acquainted. The bark
is very clean and smooth, of a light lead color, sprinkled with fine
dots of black, so that it has a grayish appearance. It attains the
height of sixty to eighty feet. The lower branches are thrown out in a
horizontal attitude, while the upper ones assume somewhat of an erect
position. The leaves are of graceful proportions, and profuse, forming
a dense shade. Some seasons this tree produces an abundance of nuts,
which grow in round, prickly burrs, very similar to chestnuts. The
nuts are triangular in shape, and supply the pigeon, partridge,
squirrels, bears, and other animals with food. The squirrel will hoard
up in his little burrow many quarts of these nuts, where he eats them
at his leisure during the seasons of winter and spring. It is quite
amusing to see the little fellows repeat their visits to their
underground habitations, or leap from branch to branch, with their
cheeks stuffed nearly to bursting with the precious Beech-nut. The
Beech does not dispense its fruit until after severe frosts occur,
when the burr either opens or drops from the limb where it grew; in
the former case, after a smart frost at night, the early morning
breeze shakes them from their elevated position, when they come
rattling down upon the dry leaves like showers of hail. Impelled by
hunger, bears often climb and gather the nut before it is ripe. I have
frequently seen, during my backwoods excursions, the topmost limbs
broken off and pulled in toward the trunk of the tree, some of them
three inches in diameter, until the whole of the top branches were
furled in, forming a tufted circle fifty feet in air.
Burned and cracked, the Beech-nut makes a very good substitute for
coffee. "The leaves were formerly used in Britain, and are to this day
in some parts of Europe, for filling beds." Evelyn says that "its very
leaves, which form a natural and most agreeable canopy all the summer,
being gathered about the fall, and somewhat before they are much
frost-bitten, afford the best and the easiest mattresses in the world
to lay under our quilts instead of straw; because, besides their
tenderness and loose lying together, they continue sweet for seven or
eight years long; before which time straw becomes musty and hard. They
are used by divers persons of quality in Dauphine, and in Switzerland
I have sometimes lain on them to my very great refreshment. So as of
this tree it may properly be said,
"'The woods a house, the leaves a bed.'"
"We can," says Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, "from our own experience, bear
testimony to the truth of what Evelyn says here as to the excellence
of Beech leaves for mattresses. We used always to think that the most
luxurious and refreshing bed was that which prevails universally in
Italy, and which consists of an absolute pile of mattresses filled
with the elastic spathe of the Indian corn--which beds have the
advantage of being soft as well as elastic--and we have always found
the sleep enjoyed on them to be peculiarly sound and restorative. But
the beds made of Beech leaves are really not a whit behind them in
these qualities, while the fragrant smell of green tea which the
leaves retain is most gratifying."
"The wood of the Beech is preferred to all other wood for plane
stocks, saw handles, and cylinders used in polishing glass.
"Botanists are unable to find more than one kind of Beech, believing
that the distinctions of '_white_' and '_red_' Beech in common use
among the people describes but one species.
"The Beech is said never to be struck by lightning. In traveling
through a forest country, many trees of a different species, such as
the Oak, and, more commonly than any tree within my observation, the
Hemlock, may be seen riven by lightning, but never the Beech.
"A most remarkable species of the Beech is said to have been
discovered by accident in Germany. In early spring, when the leaves of
the purple Beech are agitated by the wind, during bright sunshine,
their clear red gives the tree the appearance of being on fire: an
effect, Bosc observes, so truly magical, that it is scarcely credible
by those who have not seen it."--_Loudon._
THE CHESTNUT-TREE.
This tree is distinguished by the rapidity of its growth and the
excellence of its wood for posts and rails--the latter lasting half a
century--the good quality of the nut it bears, and the age and size to
which it attains.
"Some of the most remarkable trees of Europe are Chestnut-trees. On
Mount AEtna is the famous _Castagno di cento cavalli_, so called from
its having sheltered a hundred mounted cavaliers. Brydon found this,
in 1770, two hundred and four feet in circumference, and it had the
appearance of five distinct trees. A century before, when seen by
Kircher, they were united, so that probably it had been one tree. The
Forworth Chestnut, in England, was fifty-two feet in girth in 1820,
when measured by Strutt. Near Sanserre, in France, is a tree of more
than ten feet in diameter at six feet from the ground. It is supposed
to be a thousand years old."
The largest measurements given of the Chestnut in this country are of
one in Bolton, with an erect, undivided trunk forty or fifty feet;
three feet from the ground it measured seventeen feet in
circumference.
"Southeast of Monument Mountain, near the road leading to Sheffield,
in a pasture, an old Chestnut measured, in September, 1844, 'at the
ground, thirty feet two inches in circumference; at four feet,
twenty-one feet in circumference: the branches extended sixty feet.'"
The Balm of Gilead, the Willow, of which there are twenty-one species,
the Ash and Basswood, the Poplar and Hemlock, all afford specimens of
great magnitude, as well as possess properties of much value; to which
list we may add the Hickory, chiefly for the great variety of valuable
purposes to which the wood is appropriated. "Few trees contribute so
much to the beauty of woods in autumn; the colors of all at that
season are rich, and each species has its own. The fruit of some of
the species in its wild state vies with the best of foreign nuts."
THE FIR-TREE.
"In its native forests the Fir-tree varies from two to ten feet in
diameter, and from one hundred to one hundred and eighty feet in
height. A stump is mentioned as still found on the Columbia River,
which measures forty-eight feet in circumference at three feet from
the ground, exclusive of its very thick bark."
THE SPRUCE-TREE.
This tree presents a tapering trunk, with a top of mathematical
exactness, a regular cone. They attain to the height of seventy or
one hundred feet, measuring at the base--the largest I have ever
seen--about eight feet in circumference. Lightness, strength, and
elasticity are the distinguishing qualities of this wood; and, owing
to this, it is extensively used in ship-building, and the frame-work
of houses.
The Hemlock is a large tree, often measuring fifteen feet in
circumference at the base; the column rises to an elevation of from
seventy to one hundred feet; it holds its size remarkably until it
reaches the principal limbs, two thirds its height, when it tapers
rapidly to the extremity. Its foliage is beautiful for its softness,
and forms the principal ingredient in the bed of lumbermen. The use of
the boughs for brooms is known to the good country people throughout
New England. By persons of classical taste, it is considered the most
beautiful of the evergreens.
The author of Massachusetts Reports on Trees, &c., to whom I am much
indebted for many of the preceding observations, remarks of the young
Hemlock, "that in the beginning of summer each twig is terminated with
a tuft of yellowish-green, recent leaves, surmounting the darker green
of the former year; the effect, as an object of beauty, is equaled by
very few flowering shrubs, and far surpasses that produced by any
other tree." The bark is valuable in tanning leather, and makes
excellent fuel. This tree grows in immense quantities in the northeast
part of Maine, often occupying acres of ground, to the exclusion of
nearly all other trees. Its wood is more valued for boards than
formerly; its close grain and hardness fit it peculiarly for flooring.
"It is much used in the large Atlantic cities as a substitute for
stone in the pavement of streets, for which purpose it is sawn into
hexagonal (six-sided) blocks of eight inches in thickness, and eight,
ten, or eighteen inches in breadth."
"The American _Larch_, known very generally in New England by the
aboriginal name of Hackmatack, is sometimes known to attain an
elevation of seventy feet, but does not usually exceed forty or fifty
feet." It has crowded tufts of leaves, not unlike those of the Spruce
or Pine, much shorter than those of the latter, and more slender and
graceful than those of the former, and of lighter green, so disposed
on the ends of the branches as to make the foliage of the tree the
lightest of all the forest trees, especially when compared with the
great strength of the tree itself. "Late in autumn they turn to a
soft, leather-yellow color, and in the first days of November fall."
"It has a straight, erect, rapidly-tapering trunk, clothed with a
bluish-gray bark, rather rough, with small roundish scales." The
branches are numerous, and most firmly attached to the stem, shooting
out at apparently measured distances from each other, generally in a
horizontal position, which makes its ascent quite as convenient as a
ladder; and, as it grows mostly on open or meadow land, it is often
climbed by timber-hunters, affording a good prospect of the forest on
the opposite side of the meadow or intervales.
The wood of the Hackmatack is distinguished by the following
qualities: "Close-grained, compact, of reddish color, remarkable for
its great weight, strength, and durability," the latter even being
greater than the Oak. "On these accounts it is preferred before all
other woods for knees, beams, and top timbers in ship-building."
The Larch is extensively cultivated in Europe, particularly in
Scotland. Though in America it is most generally found in low
meadow land, where is depth of soil and plenty of moisture, it has
nevertheless "the property of flourishing on surfaces almost without
soil, thickly strewn with fragments of rocks, on the high, bleak sides
and tops of hills, where vegetation scarcely exists."
The following account of the experiments made by the Dukes of
Athol, on the Highlands of Scotland, is so encouraging and deeply
interesting, that, although long, I insert it, hoping the example may
be followed in appropriate positions in this country:
"The estates of the Dukes of Athol are in the north of Scotland, in
the latitude of nearly 50 deg. north. Between 1740 and 1750, James, duke
of Athol, planted more than twelve hundred Larch-trees in various
situations and elevations, for the purpose of trying a species of tree
then new in Scotland. In 1759 he planted seven hundred Larches over a
space of twenty-nine Scotch acres, intermixed with other kinds of
forest trees, with the view of trying the value of the Larch as a
timber tree. This plantation extended up the face of a hill from two
hundred to four hundred feet above the level of the sea. The rocky
ground of which it was composed was covered with loose and crumbling
masses of mica slate, and was not worth above L3 a year altogether.
Before he died, in 1764, he was satisfied of the superiority of the
Larch as a timber over other firs, even in trees only eighteen or
nineteen years old. His successor, John, duke of Athol, first
conceived the idea of planting Larch by itself as a forest tree, and
of planting the sides of the hills about Dunkeld. He planted three
acres with Larches alone, at an elevation of five or six hundred feet
above the level of the sea, on a soil not worth a shilling an acre. He
also planted over four hundred acres on the sides of hills before his
death, in 1774. His son, Duke John, continuing the execution of his
father's plans, had planted in 1783 279,000 trees. Observing the rapid
growth and hardy nature of the Larch, he determined to cover with it
the steep acclivities of mountains of greater altitude than any that
had yet been tried. He therefore inclosed a space of twenty-nine acres
on the rigid summit of Craig-y-barns, and planted a strip entirely
with Larches among the crevices and hollows of the rocks, where the
least soil could be found. At this elevation none of the larger kinds
of natural plants grew, so that the grounds required no previous
preparation of clearing. This plantation was formed in 1785 and 1786.
Between that year and 1791 he planted six hundred and eighty acres
with 500,000 Larches, the greater part only sprinkled over the
surface, on account of the difficulty of procuring a sufficient number
of plants. Besides a plantation of seventy acres for the purpose of
embellishment, he had, in 1799, extended his plantations of Larches
over an additional space of eight hundred acres, six hundred of which
were planted entirely, though thinly, with Larch. These took 800,000
plants.
"Observing, with satisfaction and admiration, the luxuriant growth
of the Larch in all situations, and its hardihood even in the most
exposed regions, the duke resolved on pushing entire Larch plantations
still further to the summit of the highest hills.
"He therefore determined to cover with Larch sixteen hundred Scotch
acres, situated from nine hundred to twelve hundred feet above the
level of the sea. Its soil, presenting the most barren aspect, was
strewed over thickly with fragments of rock, and vegetation of any
kind scarcely existed upon it. 'To endeavor to grow ship-timber,"
writes the duke, "among rocks and shivered fragments of schist, such
as I have described, would have appeared to a stranger extreme folly,
and money thrown away; but, in the year 1800, I had for more than
twenty-five years so watched and admired the hardihood and the strong
vegetative powers of the Larch, in many situations as barren and as
rugged as any part of this range, though not so elevated, as quite
satisfied me that I ought, having so fair an opportunity, to seize
it.'
"Having now no doubt whatever of the successful growth of the Larch in
very elevated situations, the duke still further pursued his object of
covering _all_ his mountainous regions with that valuable wood.
Accordingly, a space to the northward of the one last described,
containing two thousand nine hundred and fifty-nine Scotch acres, was
immediately inclosed, and planted entirely with Larch.
"This tract, lying generally above the region of broom, furze,
juniper, and long heath, required no artificial clearing. An improved
mode of planting was employed here, that of using young plants only,
two or three years' seedlings, put into the ground by means of an
instrument invented by the duke instead of the common spade.
"In 1824, the growth of the Larch in this last tract, called _Loch
Ordie Forest_, having greatly exceeded the sanguine hopes and
expectations of the duke, he determined on adding to it an extensive
adjoining tract, consisting of two thousand two hundred and thirty-one
Scotch acres, denominated Loch Hoishnie. The preparations of fencing,
clearing (where that was necessary), making roads, and procuring
plants from different nurserymen, occupied the time till October,
1825, when the planting commenced, and was carried on in such good
earnest that the whole was finished by December, 1826.
"The planting of this forest appears to have terminated the labors of
the duke in planting. He and his predecessors had planted more than
fourteen millions of Larch plants, occupying over ten thousand English
acres. It has been estimated that the whole forest on mountain ground,
planted entirely with Larch, about six thousand five hundred Scotch
acres, will, in seventy-two years from the time of planting, be a
forest of timber fit for building the largest ships. Before being cut
down for this purpose, it will have been thinned to about four hundred
trees to an acre. Supposing each tree to yield fifty cubic feet of
timber, its value, at a shilling a foot (one half the present value),
will give L1,000 an acre, or, in all, a sum of L6,500,000 sterling."[4]
[4] Reports on Trees and Shrubs of Massachusetts.
THE PINE-TREE, OR FOREST LIFE.
PART II.
CHAPTER I.
The Pines.--White Pines: rank claimed for this Variety.--
Predilections.--Comparison instituted.--Pitch and Norway Pines.
--White Pine.--Magnitude.--New York Pines.--Lambert's Pine on
Northwest Coast.--Varieties.--Its Rank.--Great variety of purposes
to which it is devoted.--Great Pine near Jackson Lake.--Capital
Invested.--Hands employed on the Penobscot.
After the foregoing brief notice of some of the most interesting
trees, we come at length to consider that species which constitutes
the theme of the following pages.
The PINE has been appropriately called the Monarch of the Forest.
Taken all in all, it is the crowning master-piece of all woody plants.
This avowal is made in full view of what has been said respecting
other specimens of the vegetable kingdom. From early education, we are
accustomed to regard some things as before others in point of merit,
whether truth in the case would support our notions or not.
For trees we have our preferences. There is much of interest in every
development of nature--much to admire, especially in the grandeur, the
picturesque beauty, and sublimity of large forest trees. These things
are so clearly defined in the mind of the botanist--so many
excellencies does he discover in each genus, and every species of the
respective families, that each succeeding description seems to place
the last before every preceding one.
Mankind, pretty generally, are disposed to place the Oak at the head
of the vegetable kingdom, and it is crowned monarch of the forest.
I was reared among the noble Pines of Maine, nestled in my cradle
beneath their giant forms, and often has the sighing wind made music
that has calmed me to repose as it gently played through their
tasseled boughs. Often have I been filled with awe as I gazed upon
their massive trunks and raised my eye to their cloud-swept tops.
When a child, even, I could never read the following eulogy on the Oak
without a fit of jealousy:
"The Oak for grandeur, strength, and noble size
Excels all trees which in the forest grow."
Of the truth of this sentiment I could never feel persuaded; in fact,
in only one particular is this true. In strength the Oak excels, but
in towering grandeur and massive diameter the Pine far exceeds the
Oak, and indeed all other North American trees. Properly there are but
three species of the Pine. 1. The White Pine. 2. Pitch Pine. 3. The
Norway, or Red Pine, as it is sometimes called.[5] The Red Pine is
remarkable for its tall trunk; it sometimes rises eighty feet before
it puts out a limb. I recollect cutting one on the Mattawamkeag River,
which disembogues into the Penobscot, eighty-two feet before reaching
a limb. They are sometimes found one hundred feet in height and four
feet in diameter.
[5] "With very few exceptions, the Pines are monoecious
(having the male and female flowers on the same tree). The
yellow pollen, which is very abundant, often falls in such
quantities upon the branches and leaves below, and upon the
neighboring plants, as to cover them; and being as light and
fine as dust, it has been sometimes carried by the wind from
a forest of Pines and spread upon the ground at a great
distance. This affords a probable explanation of the stories
which have been told, and which have been regarded with
superstition or incredulity, of showers of sulphur."
Lambert, describing the common Scotch Fir, says, "The pollen
is sometimes in spring carried away by the wind in such
quantities as to alarm the ignorant with the notion of its
raining brimstone."
The Pitch Pine is inferior to the red in size. The largest
measurements I have ever seen give to one a diameter of two and a half
feet, and ninety feet height; to another a girth of seven feet at the
ground, and eighty feet height. This Pine is chiefly valued for the
excellence of its fuel; and for generating steam in working engines it
is preferable to any other wood.[6] Formerly, in some parts of the
country, it was found much larger than it now is. "Men are living in
Massachusetts and Maine who remember that it was not uncommon to find
them of more than a hundred feet in height and four or five feet in
diameter."
[6] The amount of this wood annually consumed on the
rail-roads in Massachusetts is valued at $200,000.
At present the White Pine is altogether the most important of the
species. In New England, particularly in the northern part, it is
often found to measure one hundred and fifty feet in height.
It is said that not many years since pines were found in the eastern
part of New York which measured two hundred and forty feet in height.
"Lambert's Pine, on the Northwest Coast, is found growing to the
height of two hundred and thirty feet, and Douglas's Pine, in the same
region, the loftiest tree known, has been said to exceed three hundred
feet." The traveler quoted above describes one of the following
dimensions: "One specimen, which had been blown down by the wind--and
this was certainly not the largest which I saw--was of the following
dimensions: its entire length was two hundred and fifteen feet; its
circumference, three feet from the ground, was fifty-seven feet nine
inches (nineteen feet three inches in diameter); and at one hundred
and thirty-four feet from the ground it was seventeen feet five
inches" in circumference, or about six feet in diameter.[7]
[7] Since writing the above, the following account has come to
hand: "The Bald Cypress of Oaxana (_Taxodium distichum_) and
the famous Chestnut of AEtna have been often cited as the
giants of the vegetable kingdom. But these sovereigns are
dethroned, and put into the second rank by those lately
discovered in Tasmania, which leave far behind them those
antique monuments of nature. Last week I went to see the two
largest trees existing in the world. Both of them are on the
border of a small stream tributary to the river of Northwest
Bay, in the rear of Mount Wellington. They are of the species
named there Swamp Gum; I and my companions (five of us)
measured them. One of them had fallen; we therefore easily
obtained its dimensions. We found its body two hundred and
twenty feet from the ground to the first branch. The top had
broken off and partly decayed, but we ascertained the entire
height of the tree to have been certainly three hundred feet.
We found the diameter of the base of it to be thirty feet, and
at the first branch twelve feet. Its weight we estimated to be
four hundred and forty tons. The other tree, now growing
without the least sign of decay, resembles an immense tower
rising among the humble Sassafras-trees, although very large
in fact. The Gum-tree at three feet above the ground measured
one hundred and two feet in circumference. In the space of a
square mile, I think there were not less than one hundred of
these trees, none less than forty feet in circumference. It
must require several thousand years to produce the largest
one."--_Revue Horticole._
In Doctor Dwight's Travels we have an account of a tree in Lancaster,
New Hampshire, which measured two hundred and sixty-four feet in
length. "Fifty years ago, several trees growing on rather dry land in
Blandford, measured, after they were felled, more than thirteen rods
and a half, or two hundred and twenty-three feet in length."
I have worked in the forests among this timber several years, have cut
many hundreds of trees, and seen many thousands, but have never found
one larger than the one I felled on a little stream which emptied into
Jackson Lake, near the head of Baskahegan stream, in the eastern part
of Maine. This was a "Pumpkin" Pine; its trunk was as straight and
handsomely grown as a molded candle, and measured six feet in diameter
four feet from the ground, without the aid of spur roots. It was
about nine rods in length, or one hundred and forty-four feet, about
sixty-five feet of which was free of limbs, and retained its diameter
remarkably well. I was employed about one hour and a quarter in
felling it. The afternoon was beautiful; every thing was calm, and to
me the circumstances were deeply interesting. After chopping an hour
or so, the mighty giant, the growth of centuries, which had withstood
the hurricane, and raised itself in peerless majesty above all around,
began to tremble under the strokes of a mere insect, as I might appear
in comparison with it. My heart palpitated as I occasionally raised my
eye to its pinnacle to catch the first indications of its fall. It
came down at length with a crash which seemed to shake a hundred
acres, while the loud echo rang through the forest, dying away among
the distant hills. It had a hollow in the butt about the size of a
barrel, and the surface of the stump was sufficiently capacious to
allow a yoke of oxen to stand upon it. It made five logs, and loaded a
six-ox team three times. The butt log was so large that the stream did
not float it in the spring, and when the drive was taken down we were
obliged to leave it behind, much to our regret and loss. At the boom
that log would have been worth fifty dollars.
Of the White Pine there are varieties, which by some are attributed to
peculiar characteristics of the various locations in which they grow.
That variety called sapling Pine, bull sapling, &c., usually grows on
high, hard-wood land, or a mixture of evergreens and deciduous trees;
particularly on the boundaries which mark damp, low forests and the
lower border of ridges. The pumpkin Pine is generally found on flat
land and in ravines; also on abrupt ridges, called horsebacks, where
the forest is dense.
The sap or outside of the sapling Pine is much thicker than that of
the pumpkin Pine. I have seen it more than six inches thick on the
former, and less than half an inch on the latter. This difference is
accounted for by the rapidity with which the sapling grows, and the
tardiness with which the swamp Pine matures, which, as before
intimated, is to be attributed to the difference in their location.
Of course, we must yield to the opinions of learned botanists; but
while they maintain that these two are simply varieties of the same
species, the proof seems insufficient to convince many whose daily
occupation renders them most familiar with forest trees. If the
difference is only attributable to soil and position, then we may
reply that we have found the sapling in all possible locations.
Besides, there are marked distinctions. The general contour differs
much. The size, number, and position of the branches, the shape of the
trunk, the toughness of the wood in the sapling, and the softness of
that of the pumpkin Pine, all indicate a specific and essential
difference. We have seen whole groves of saplings on low, swampy land.
The same number of saplings are generally much sounder than an equal
number of soft Pine.
The soft Pine-tree holds its diameter to a much greater length than
the sapling. I have seen a log of the former twenty feet long,
differing not more than an inch and a half in diameter at either end.
In a sapling log of the same length there would be a difference of
several inches.
There is one circumstance in the habits of this Pine worthy of note.
As a general thing, they grow in clusters or communities. Indeed, this
is a common characteristic of the Hemlock, the Cedar, and the
Hackmatack.
But there is, however, a sort of nationality in the local attitude of
the latter. While the Pines, growing in clusters, seem to constitute
the aristocracy--families of nobility--the rest of the forest seems to
make up the populace; and I may add, that backwoodsmen are accustomed
to pay them the same deferential regard above other gentlemen
foresters which is awarded to superiors in human society. Indeed, the
Pine has claims upon our regard, not only on account of its unequaled
dimensions, but "from the importance of its products in naval, and
especially in civil and domestic architecture, in many of the arts,
and in some instances in medicine."
"As it affords timber and boards of a greater size than any other
soft-wooded tree, and is lighter and more free from knots, it is used
in preference for the masts of ships, for the large beams, posts, and
covering of wooden buildings, and for the frame-work of houses and
bridges, as well as for clap-boards and shingles. The clearness,
softness, and beauty of this wood recommend it for the panels and
frames of doors, for wainscotings, for the frames of windows, for
cornices and moldings, and for all the uses of the joiner. As it
receives paint perfectly, it is employed for floors which are to be
painted. Varnished without paint, it gradually takes a yellowish or
light reddish color, and has considerable beauty. It is excellent for
the carver in wood, and is used for the figure-heads of vessels; and
as it takes gilding well, it is preferred for the frames of
looking-glasses and pictures."
Its importance may be estimated, also, from the vast amount of
employment it furnishes and the revenue it produces. Its history is
full of interest from the hour it leaves the stump in the forest,
through the various processes it passes until taken from the hold of
the ship and piled away upon our market piers. The amount of
employment it furnishes to lumbermen, mill-men, rafters, coasters,
truckmen, merchants, and mechanics, exceeds that furnished by any
other single product in Maine or the province of New Brunswick. On the
Penobscot alone there are said to be ten thousand men engaged in
lumbering.