2 FIEST BOOK OF FOFvESTEY 



It is a mature old stand; the trees are mostly over 

 two feet in diameter and eighty to one hundred feet 

 high, and it is quite safe to say that they started more 

 than a hundred years ago. 



It is a mixed stand of different kinds of broad-leaved 

 trees, or hardwoods, with here and there a pme. Most 

 of these trees are long shafted, — their trunks are long 

 and free from limbs for tliirty to forty feet from the 

 ground, — and how greatly they differ from the beautiful 

 shady elms about the house ! 



Some of the trees are not as thrifty as the rest ; they 

 appear injured ; their crowns are small, and the crowns 

 of the larger trees crowd and shade them. We will call 

 these trees suppressed, and the larger ones dominant. 



Some of the suppressed trees are nearly or quite dead, 

 and it appears that the crowding and shading cause 

 this injury. 



Though there is an abundance of room on the ground, 

 there are but few young trees, and these only in the places 

 where the roof, or canopy, of our forest is less dense, 

 where some old tree had fallen years ago. And yet these 

 trees must have borne many a good crop of seed during 

 their long lives. What has become of all this seed ? Did 

 it fail to germinate ? Did the seedhngs die ? Apparently 

 this dense stand is not a good place for young trees; and, 

 strange enough, the few smaller trees which do exist seem 

 to be all maple and beech, while hardly any of them are 



