14 NANTUCKET TREES 



Svedish increment borer, has estimated an age of 85 

 years each for three of the beeches in "Hidden Forest. 



1128 



It is the succession of dead floras in these 

 climax stages developed from the glacial lakes that has 

 made the hidden forests possible. Elsewhere over the 

 island the soil is light and sandy and, Creveceour adds, 

 "a receptacle for rabbits." 9 Harshberger lists the soil 

 of glacial sands and gravels second to the wind as a. fac- 

 tor influential in making Nantucket "practically tree- 

 less." 19 Moreover, years of deforestation under the 

 wind-swept island conditions have brought loss of soil 

 in its wake and have thus, in a vicious circle, caused 

 a "recession" to a moorland vegetation. 44 The peat 

 bottoms of the ancient lake beds, on the other hand, 

 have furnished a soil for forest stands. These are tree 

 asylums today. Rooted in peat, protected from vind by 

 the barricade of hardy shrubs which earlier bordered the 

 lake, trees have grown here to hoary age. Even shrubs 

 in these asylums often assume tree habit. Blueberry 

 tree-shrubs ripen their fruit out of reach of picking. 

 A shad bush in Pocomo swamp measures l-j feet in diameter 

 about 2 feet above the ground. In a swamp near Madaket 

 a bayberry tree has a trunk 4 inches in diameter and Its 

 bark, wrinkled with age, has lost entirely the character 

 of that of the bayberry bush. In Ram Pasture a beach 

 plum and an elder berry have each the stature of trees. 



Aside from the wind haz-ards the climate of 

 Nantucket Is evidently mild enough to allow the growth 

 of trees of more southerly latitudes. Bassett Jones, in 

 his plantation on Polpis Road, has built a tree asylum 

 by use of the resistant Japanese black pine, Pinus 

 Thunbergii Pari ., as a wind shelter. Within its protec- 

 tion young balsam firs, Abi.es balsatiea (L. ) Mill., are 

 holding their own; the Chinese pine, Ptnus tabul aeformis 

 Carr., has grown to pyramids of beauty; and two bald 

 cypress, Taxodium distlchvn Rich., delight one with 

 their feathery green. 



No wonder Bassett Jones is an ardent advocate 

 of black pine for Nantucket plantings. For shelter 

 purposes there can be none better. The first Nantucket 

 planting of Pinus Thunbergii Pari, in 1895 by Bassett 



