THE WOODS. 



153 



in their old age were not divided. If, too, in a dense 

 thicket of growth, one branch shall closely press against 

 another, by the constant rubbing and scarifying of the 

 bark by the wind and the consequent irritating stimulus 

 toward a bulging of the bark at the wound, trees of the 

 same species will rarely join their arms together, twin- 

 like, thus singularly 

 uniting themselves 

 into one tree, but I 

 have never seen the 

 cicatrix completed 

 with trees of a dif- 

 ferent sap. 



I know of a row 

 of great elms, 

 planted in memory 

 of a Revolutionary 

 soldier, in whose 

 sides large iron 

 staples were driven, 

 with rings in them, 

 for the hitching of 

 horses; and these 

 have now altogether 

 been enmeshed 

 within the trees, a 



few eyes, or dents, in the bark being the only external 

 indication of their presence. 



Perhaps you will come across in your work an old 

 fire scar at the butt of a tree, now healed over by the 

 slow process of the rings, pretty well covered by the 

 newer growth and well hidden from the outside, and 

 yet showing that some one had been there years ago, 



ALONG THE BROOKS. 



