NOTES OX FOREST TREES. 183 



while the others, nine in number, one a pine, one an oak, 

 the rest spruce, were so much decayed that the building 

 was considered unsafe. A specimen of this poplar was 

 finally procured 18 inches in diameter : the tree was 43 

 feet to the first limb, and 84 feet was the entire height. 



Populus tremuloides {Common Aspen) is everywhere 

 abundant ; its line, bright green foliage making it very 

 conspicuous. The bark of this tree is so white that it is 

 hard to distinguish it from a birch at a distance of fifty feet. 

 Its largest size is 18 inches in diameter and 40 feet high. 



Juniperus virgixiana {Red Cedar) is quite a rare tree 

 in this section and is restricted to the hills in the vicinity 

 of Lake Champlain near Keeseville. The largest speci- 

 men was not over 6 inches in diameter and 15 feet in 

 height. 



Thuja occidextalis {Arbor Vitm, or, as it is called in 

 New York, Swamp Cedar) has been very abundant, but 

 it is now getting scarce as it seldom makes a second 

 growth. 



One reason for this is that, in the swamps where it flour- 

 ishes, quantities of sphagnum and ferns grow most lux- 

 uriantly, and the dead wood, as soon as the old growth is 

 removed, becomes as dry as tinder and is almost sure to 

 be burned over. In any part of Clinton county one can 

 find hundreds of acres, once a cedar swamp, now a mass 

 of charred logs and unsightly blackened stumps. In Mor- 

 risonville there is a growth of these trees on the land of 

 W. V. Hammond, several of which were cut and found to 

 measure 12 feet in circumference. These trees are always 

 the abode of large, black ants and often are partially de- 

 cayed at the heart when they are over 2 feet in diameter. 

 One of the old logs, with which the ground in this swamp is 

 covered, was measured and found to be 77 feet long, and as 

 the bark and sap w r ood had all decayed, leaving the upper 



