40 THOREAU. 



foot of a hemlock, within a couple of rods of me, and, 

 hastily pawing a hole with its forefeet, dropped its 

 booty into it, covered it up, and retreated part way 

 up the trunk of the tree. As I approached the shore 

 to examine the deposit, the squirrel, descending part 

 way, betrayed no little anxiety about its treasure, 

 and made two or three motions to recover it before it 

 finally retreated. Digging there, I found two green 

 pig-nuts joined together, with the thick husks on, 

 buried about an inch and a half under the reddish 

 soil of decayed hemlock leaves, just the right depth 

 to plant it. In short, this squirrel was then engaged 

 in accomplishing two objects, to wit, laying up a store 

 of winter food for itself, and planting a hickory wood 

 for all creation. If the squirrel was killed, or neg 

 lected its deposit, a hickory would spring up. The 

 nearest hickory tree was twenty rods distant. These 

 nuts were there still just fourteen days later, but were 

 gone when I looked again, November 21, or six weeks 

 later still. 



I have since examined more carefully several dense 

 woods, which are said to be, and are apparently ex 

 clusively pine, and always with the same result. For 

 instance, I walked the same day to a small but very 

 dense and handsome white-pine grove, about fifteen 

 rods square, in the east part of this town. The trees 

 are large for Concord, being from ten to twenty 

 inches in diameter, and as exclusively pine as any 

 wood that I know. Indeed, I selected this wood be 

 cause I thought it the least likely to contain anything 

 else. It stands on an open plain or pasture, except 

 that it adjoins another small pine wood, which has a 

 few little oaks in it, on the southeast side. On every 

 other side it was at least thirty rods from the nearest 



