138 AROUND AN OLD HOMESTEAD. 



and curved to the point where one of the present shoots 

 takes the place of the main stem, but from there up- 

 ward will be as straight as a new tree, unless some 

 similar chance should befall it later. The same thing 

 can frequently be observed near streams. The bow- 

 like trunks of those overhanging beeches near the brook 

 have plainly been caused by the constant washing away 

 of the soil from about their roots, with the consequent 

 leaning of the tree in the direction of the water. A 

 middle-sized maple near by is also bowed over, at a 

 notch made by hunters. Perhaps its hollow interior 

 had been the refuge of a rabbit or squirrel in a hasty 

 retreat, and the game had then been cut out from above, 

 and the tree had at that point been weakened. A larger 

 ash, farther along, with the base of its trunk crushed 

 and distorted, apparently shows the effect of a heavy 

 weight of snow, or of a dead limb, which perhaps had 

 fallen from a larger tree, and accidentally lodged upon 

 its tender stem, in its early seedling life. 



And what an interesting bit of curious history the 

 face of the cross-section of a tree is, as we look at the 

 old stumps and the ends of the fresh logs, just cut and 

 lying in the woods: the first early growth; the remains 

 of old dead branches left in the dark hard knots; the 

 age of the tree in its rings; the double heart signifying 

 a breakage at one time of the original stem; the effect 

 of varying degrees of heat and cold, of climatic con- 

 ditions, and of severe or more propitious seasons, as 

 evidenced by the broad, expanded rings and the narrow, 

 compressed, less visible ones. It is only the approxi- 

 mate age that we find. A tree is at least as old as the 

 number of its rings, but I have reckoned the age of tiny 



