THE WOODS. 143 



the tree stands, but ineffaceable and permanent as long 

 as the wood lasts and is not decayed. 



Yonder, near the light of a clearing, we can see 

 the sugar camp now. It is the most romantic nook in 

 the woods. A path leads to it from tree to tree, issuing 

 at last in the camp, and a sled road winds about through 

 the bush. The camp harmonizes well with the woods, 

 being made largely of logs and poles with the bark still 

 on, picturesquely put together by supporting crotches 

 with the fine instinct and art of the true woodsman. 

 Beneath its sheltering roof each year are put to test in 

 the right season all the old-time, and the best, ways 

 of making maple syrup, and the great kettles boil and 

 simmer many a long night, while merry are the laughter 

 and sport under the stars. 



I have chopped into trees at the sides of old blazes, 

 in order to see how many years of growth it had taken 

 to cover them, and it is always an interesting experi- 

 ment. Some that I investigated had been there over 

 fifty years, and were yet discernible ; some, less. I have 

 heard of a tree in a well-known locality that was cut 

 into for this very purpose, in order to ascertain the age 

 of old blazes supposed to have been made upon it and 

 to be shut in within the wood, and marks of the ax 

 were found two hundred years back, gashed there long 

 ago by Indians, as the traditions of the place asserted. 

 Lauder, in one of his notes to Gilpin's "Forest Scenery," 

 says that there are also on record instances of "curious 

 discoveries" made in the felling of some trees in Eng- 

 land toward the close of the eighteenth century, such as 

 the marks of the cyphers of James I, William and 

 Mary, and King John (thus denoting the reign when 



