A NATURALIST. 97 



without impediment. Even when the young pines have 

 attained to thirty or forty feet in height, and are as thick 

 as a man's thigh, they stand so closely together, that their 

 lower branches, which are all dry and dead, are inter- 

 mingled, sufficiently to prevent any one from passing 

 between the trees without first breaking these obstruc- 

 tions away. I have seen such a wood as that just men- 

 tioned, covering an old corn-field, whose ridges were still 

 distinctly to be traced, and which an old resident informed 

 me he had seen growing in corn. In a part of this wood 

 which was not far from my dwelling, I had a delightful 

 retreat, that served me as a private study or closet, though 

 enjoying all the advantages of the open air. A road 

 that had once passed through the field, and was of course 

 more compacted than any other part, had denied access 

 to the pine seeds for a certain distance, while on each 

 side of it they grew with their usual density. The ground 

 was covered with the soft layer or carpet of dried pine 

 leaves which gradually and imperceptibly fall through- 

 out the year, making a most pleasant surface to tread on, 

 and rendering the step perfectly noiseless. By beating 

 off with a stick all the dried branches that projected 

 towards the vacant space, I formed a sort of chamber, 

 fifteen or twenty feet long, which above was canopied by 

 the densely mingled branches of the adjacent trees, which 

 altogether excluded or scattered the rays of the sun, and 

 on all sides was so shut in by the trunks of the young 

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