THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES. 41 



woods. Standing on the edge of this grove and look 

 ing through it, for it is quite level and free from un 

 derwood, for the most part bare, red-carpeted ground, 

 you would have said that there was not a hard-wood 

 tree in it, young or old. But on looking carefully 

 along over its floor I discovered, though it was not till 

 my eye had got used to the search, that, alternating 

 with thin ferns and small blueberry bushes, there was, 

 not merely here and there, but as often as every five 

 feet and with a degree of regularity, a little oak, from 

 three to twelve inches high, and in one place I found 

 a green acorn dropped by the base of a pine. 



I confess, I was surprised to find my theory so 

 perfectly proved in this case. One of the principal 

 agents in this planting, the red squirrels, were all the 

 while curiously inspecting me, while I was inspecting 

 their plantation. Some of the little oaks had been 

 browsed by cows, which resorted to this wood for 

 shade. 



After seven or eight years, the hard woods evi 

 dently find such a locality unfavorable to their growth, 

 the pines being allowed to stand. As an evidence of 

 this, I observed a diseased red-maple twenty-five feet 

 long, which had been recently prostrated, though it 

 was still covered with green leaves, the only maple in 

 any position in the wood. 



But although these oaks almost invariably die if 

 the pines are not cut down, it is probable that they 

 do better for a few years under their shelter than they 

 would anywhere else. 



The very extensive and thorough experiments of 

 the English have at length led them to adopt a method 

 of raising oaks almost precisely like this, which some 

 what earlier had been adopted by nature and her 



