AMERICAN FOREST-TREES. 323" 



on rather dry land in Blandford, Massacliusetts, measured, after 

 tliey were felled, two hundred and twenty-tliree feet." All these 

 trees are surpassed bj a pine felled at Hanover, 'New Hampshire, 

 about a hundred years ago, and described as measuring two 

 hundred and seventy-four feet.* These descriptions, it will be 

 noticed, apply to trees cut from seventy to one hundred and forty 

 years since. 



Persons, whom observation has rendered familiar Avith the 

 present character of the American forest, wiU be struck with the 

 smallness of the diameter which Dr. Wilhams and Dr. D wight 

 ascribe to trees of such extraordinary height. Individuals of the 

 several species mentioned in Dr. Williams's table, are now hardly 

 to be found, in the same climate, exceeding one-half or at most 

 two-thirds of the height which he assigns to them ; but, except 

 in the case of the oak and the pine, the diameter stated by him 

 would not be thought very extraordinary in trees of far less 

 height now standing. Even in the species I have excepted, those 

 diameters, with haK the heights given by Dr. Wilhams, might per- 

 haps be paralleled at the present time ; and many elms, transplanted, 

 at a diameter of six inches, within the memory of persons still liv- 

 ing, measure four and sometimes even five feet through. For 

 this change in the growth of forest-trees there are two reasons : 

 the one is, that the great commercial value of the pine and the 

 oak has caused the destruction of all the best — that is, the tall- 

 est and straightest — specimens of both ; the other, that the thin- 

 ning of the woods by the axe of the lumberman has allowed the 

 access of hght and heat and air to trees of humbler worth and 

 lower stature, which have survived their more towering brethren. 

 These, consequently, have been able to expand their crowns and 

 swell their stems to a degree not possible so long as they were 

 overshadowed and stifled by the lordly oak and pine. While, 

 therefore, the New England forester must search long before he 



finds a pine «♦ * i, .1, 



^ fit to be the mast 



Of some great ammiral, 



planted trees had received no other fertilizing application than an unlimited 

 supply of light and air. 



* WiLLiAJis, History of Vermont, ii., p. 53. Dwight's Travels, iv., p. 21, 

 and iii., p. 3G. Emerson, Trees of Massachusetts, p. 61. Pauish, Life of 

 President WTiedock, p. 56. 



