leister] the story OF A SYCAMORE 305 



know that the life of a tree is like an open book to those who can 

 read it? All of the accidents that the tree has had, the years of 

 drought and the years of plenty, all are marked indelibly in the tree. 

 We can read this history when we understand its growth habits, 

 and the e very-day life of a tree. 



It has often seemed to me that a tree is almost human. It 

 breathes and gets its food almost as we do. It breathes through 

 the leaves and the pores in the bark and the roots. These, then, 

 would correspond to our lungs, and just as our lungs, they take in 

 oxygen and give off carbon-dioxide. But, after all, the chief 

 reason that makes a tree seem almost human is its individuality, I 

 almost said personality. 



The leaves are wonderful structures for they also act as "starch 

 factories"; for with the sap from the roots and other materials 

 taken from the air, the leaf, by the virtue of the green material in it 

 and the light from the sun, manufactures starch which is used by 

 the tree. In a tree, then, we have a factory that is run by sun 

 power instead of electricity or steam. 



This starch is not used directly by the tree, however, since it can 

 not be assimilated in this form and it must be then changed into 

 sugar. Thus, different elements such as sulphur and phosphorus 

 that have been taken from the soil by the roots are added to the 

 starch and proteids are made. These are used by the tree. 



The tree grows by adding a new layer of wood every year. This 

 results in having the wood composed of a series of concentric circles. 

 These are called annular rings. It is by these annular rings that 

 we can tell the life history of the tree. 



Going back to our sycamore, then, we will talk about its past: 

 Since the old tree had been blown down we had to cut it up in 

 sections and haul it away and when the logs were sawed, one could 

 easily see the annular rings. I counted these and found that the 

 tree was almost one hundred and fifteen years old, for there were 

 that many rings. Not all of these rings were of the same 

 thickness, indicating that some of the seasons had been very 

 dry and that the growth was not so great as in the years when 

 water was plenty. 



Buried entirely in the wood, covered up by the successive layers 

 of the wood, there was a large spike. This had been driven into 

 the tree when it was about twenty-five years old, for it lay almost 

 centered across the twenty-fifth ray. At another place a mark of 



