4 FIEST BOOK (JF FORESTEY 



oak or hickory. Evidently the beech and maple can 

 endure this luifavorable. dense shade better than oak, 

 hickory, and elm. We may call the beech and the maple 

 tolerant, since they tolerate or endure shade ; while evi- 

 dently the oak, hickory, chestnut, locust, and others are 

 rather intolerant of shade and fail to start and thrive in 

 places where the beech might still do well. 



Let us walk on a little way. The woods are more 

 open, the trees more numerous and more mixed. There 

 are quite a number of smaller trees, some mere poles or 

 saplings. Here we see a tree with an uncommonly Ijroad 

 crown ; it appears as if it were monopolizing the ground 

 in a most greedy fashion. Some people have termed 

 such trees wolves, though their greed would suggest quite 

 another animal. But whatever the name, the}' are hardly 

 good neighbors for these fine little saplings of oak and 

 chestnut. 



There are a number of bushy young trees here, and 

 even a few brambles ; dogwood and hazel find sufficient 

 sunlight. In a garden we should hardly tolerate these 

 bushes, but would rather grul) them out as weeds ; and 3et 

 they are hardly more useful here in the woods, for surely 

 they will never grow into trees, and in all cases may hin- 

 der young trees from starting or choke off the seedlings 

 of our useful trees. They a.re forest weeds, and, while we 

 could hardly afford to grub them out, yet we shall try to 

 keep them down : but how ? "Well. Nature lias already 



