14 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



Christmas on Turkeybone Mountain 



TIIK COVEK IMC'TURli illustratiuj^ this issue of IIakdwood 

 Record is appropriate. It would bo appropriate without a 

 word of explanation, for it is replete with sii(;tjestions, and no 

 person who is ])Ossossod of the usual allotment of inia;;inatiou 

 would fail to give the picture a world of meanin},'. The air is 

 full of Christmas. 



By comniou eonseiit snow is one of the essentials. Tlie snewless 

 country is a country where Christmas comes and jjoes without 

 kindling much enthusiasm, and it leaves little for memory to dwell 

 on or fancy to finish. No complaint on that score can be lodged 

 against the scene so delicatel/ outlined in the accompanying pic- 

 ture. Snow is shown in abundance, but not cut of proportion with 

 other phases of the scene. 



It is plainly a northern haidwooil region which the canicia 

 caught in such artistic drapery. Timber of merchantable size is 

 not identiful, but that is a matter of minor imjiortance, because 

 there are people who go through forests without looking for timber, 

 and there are occasions when commercial questions are out of 

 place, and this is one of them. 



Christmas and evergreens are usually associated, but is that 

 necessary? Take another look at the picture and see if anything 

 seems wanting. Not a pine, hemlock, spruce, fir, or cedar is 

 visible; yet, a more careful scrutiny will reveal an understory or 

 fringe of green leaves. They belong to the mountain laurel or 

 ivy. The new-fallen snow can find no lodging place on the smooth, 

 varnished leaves of this shrubby tree; and for that reason the 

 green foliage shows over the top of the snow, while all aljout and 

 above, the slender and leafless limbs of chestnut, basswood, and 

 birch bear their burdens of whiteness. 



Some people think of a hardwood forest in winter as a cheerless, 

 uninteresting place; but that is an opinion acquired at a distance, 

 not from intimate association. If one knows how to observe and 

 is capable of appreciation, there is a world of interesting things 

 in a snowy wood. The habits of the various trees in such a situ- 

 ation is a theme in itself which can be studied to advantage at 

 no other time. 



Does snow bend all trees alike? Does it break the branches of 

 all? Do all behave alike when the burden comes down from the 

 clouds in search of a lodging place? The common opinion among 

 the uninformed and the unobserving is that evergreens are much 

 more liable than are deciduous trees to be broken or fixedly dis- 

 torted by snow. Abstract reasoning leads to that conclusion, but 

 facts do not. Who ever saw a spruce, hemlock, fir, pine, or cedar 

 broken or permanently careened by snow? Who, that is acquainted 

 with northern hardwood forests, has not observed saplings of 

 beech, chestnut, hickory, ash, oak, elm, and basswood, bent over 

 in long parabolic curves while the burden of snow is on, and so 

 set in that position that they never again wholly regain their 

 perpendicular? Snow seldom strips limbs from large evergreens, 

 but frequently breaks those of leafless trees. The cottonwoods and 

 soft maples are sometimes literally wrecked by snow. Small needle- 

 leaf trees are often buried for weeks (and on high western moun- 

 tains for months) under piles of snow; yet, when the accumulation 

 melts, the little trees spring back again into their original positions 

 with an alacrity which seems to say: "Never touched me." The 

 leafless hardwoods so buried will probably never again stand erect, 

 but will develop permanent "sled crooks." 



The cover illustration is from a photograph taken on Turkeybone 

 Mountain, West Virginia, by the Field Museum of Natural History, 

 of Chicago. It is one in a series of thousands of pictures of scenery 

 in all parts of America, which that institution is collecting as a 

 permanent record of conditions and scenes which are passing away. 

 It is fortunate that such records are being made, because all will 

 be changed in a few generations, and that left will give little hint 

 of the wild and exhilarating beauties of nature before man dis- 

 turbed it. 



It may be remarked, since it is a Christmas occasion, that the 

 Christmas tree was not formerly, and now is only occasionally, a 

 feature in the rural festivities of those -mountain people. The 



innovation came — so far as it has yet come — from the North. 

 To this day it has little foothold among them, outside the towns. 

 The country children still follow the custom which their grand- 

 parents followed, and hang their stockings by the "mantelpiece." 

 Such gifts as come mysteriously in the darkness go into the stock- 

 ings to be drawn forth a few hours later amidst excitement an<l 

 enthusiasm, by the early risers who swarm from their beds long 

 before the first gleam of day appears in the East. As a medium 

 of conveyance of eatable gifts from the donor to the recipient, 

 the Christmas tree is doubtless more sanitary than the stocking, 

 but the mountain children would vote unanimously for the stocking. 



The change from the old to the new is not accidental or without J 

 cause. The tree was able to drive the stocking out only because 

 other changes were taking place in the customs of the people. 

 The ruling factor has been the stove or the furnace which has 

 supplanted the wide fireplace, the hearth, and the chimney. Stock- 

 ing-hanging was inseparably connected with the belief on the part 

 of the children that gifts came down the chimney in a pack carried 

 bj' a corpulent saint. It is apparent, even to the credulous mind of 

 a child, that no respectable saint can squeeze down a stovepipe 

 with a wallet on his back. Consequently, there could be no utflity ■ 

 in hanging stockings by a stove or in front of a steam radiator, and 

 the Christmas tree came as a substitute for stockings, because the 

 former was not associated with any kind of chimney. 



The tree is a mighty tame substitute for the stocking, as the 

 child views it. Of course, those who never tried the stocking 

 kuo%v no better. The tree's tinsel and tapers are a fraud, in the 

 opinion of children who have watched the dull glow of embers 

 blinking in the ashes during the long night before Christmas. 



Revert again to the cover picture, in a serious way. It is a char- 

 acteristic representation of one of the few remaining regions where 

 stockings are still hung by the chimney on Christmas night. Many 

 of the homes in that region still have their wide fireplaces. Wood 

 is plentiful. Sermons on conservation of natural resources have 

 not yet been preached there. The people burn as much wood aa 

 they please. The only difference between an armful and a cord is 

 the labor of cutting and hauling; and the people have horses fof 

 hauling and axes for chopping it. 



Why should they stop to figure out how many broom handles 

 could be made from a maple backlog? They roll it into the gener- 

 ous fireplace and think nothing of the orations of conservationists. 

 Neither do they calculate the number of spokes and ax handles a 

 cord of hickory "top-sticks" and "fore-sticks" is good for, but 

 pile them on; and though the blazes which go up that chimney 

 might not please Clifford Pinchot, they "look good" to the farailj 

 gathered round the hearth. The pinch of scarcity has not ya 

 been felt in the woodj'ards of that region, and until the pinel 

 comes, the fireplace and the chimney will roar with the flames ol 

 crackling chestnut, sputtering birch, hissing hickory, and ever 

 other wood which, by the grace of Providence, still grows abun 

 dantly on those everlasting hills. 



The New Money Measure 



I'T IS APPARENT that the business of the country must adjusj 

 ■ itself to a new system of banking. Time only will determia 

 whether the new law will do all the good predicted by its friendi 

 or half the harm prophesied by its enemies. The probability 

 that the sum of results will lie somewhere betwixt the tv 

 extremes. Tfie discussion of this measure since it fir 

 came before the country in ' concrete form affords a fid 

 example of how men will differ in their conclusions, thoufl 

 their reasonings are based on identical facts. That is neithJ 

 strange nor unusual. It has always been that way and probabl 

 will continue so for a long time. A problem in pure mathematia 

 is the only question that can be solved by educated men, and 

 of them arrive at exactly the same conclusion. 



The money bill has been attacked by able men and it has bed 

 defended by others no less able. Experience will now take il 

 slow course, and history will give the final decision. Let it 

 hoped that those who predicted disaster to the country's finance 

 will prove to be mistaken. Now that the bill has become law, 



