188 Rhodora [September 



From a study of a number of partial clearings in various places about 

 Blanc Sablon I found that the wood-cutter often chooses a spruce or 

 fir bush with a large central trunk, first cuts off the branches, and 

 then the whole top of the trunk, leaving a- stump exactly like the 

 stump figured by Professor Fernald which so irresistably compels in 

 us the conception of a lofty tree, a conception, which, to a botanist, 

 is rendered still more compelling by the presence, in the neighbor- 

 hoot! of the stumps, of a type of vegetation found only in forests. 

 I regret that a photograph I took of one of these trees that had been 

 partly cleared of branches proved to be one of the mysterious failures 

 which happen at times to all except super-human photographers, but 

 I am able to give the dimensions of this tree, which, it seems to me, 

 thoroughly sustains my contention. The tree was a black spruce 

 with a trunk forty-seven inches in circumference one foot from the 

 ground. Its diameter was therefore about one foot, two and a half 

 inches. This size of the trunk was maintained nearly to the highest 

 branch which went off at right angles thirty-two inches from the 

 ground. From the center to the tip of the branches on all sides was 

 nine feet making a diameter for the whole tree of eighteen feet. It 

 is true that many of the clumps of evergreen bushes are made up of 

 a number of small trunks, but it is also true as I found that trunks 

 of the size just described were not uncommon. In places the trunks 

 are four or even five feet high. 



When the trees are continuous over a considerable area they form 

 an almost impassible barrier. Many times, beguiled by a favorable 

 opening, I determined to disregard the difficulties and pass through a 

 hundred yards or so to an open land beyond when I found my prog- 

 ress so barred after a hard struggle of a few yards, that it seemed an 

 economy of both time and effort to go even a mile around, rather than 

 to attempt the straight and extremely narrow course. Where the 

 trees are only a foot or two high, one can walk on their tops, but this 

 is out of the question in trees four or five feet high. Perhaps one could 

 have managed it with modified snow shoes. 



To delve beneath these ancient trees, — for my former studies 

 of tree rings in various places on the Labrador ('oast assures me that 

 many of these trees must be much over a hundred years old and may 

 in some cases date back even to (artier — is a difficult task, but one 

 finds here a habitat in which forest plants are surely at home. 

 Boston, Massachusetts. 



