21 8 Life of Audubon. 



has been attacked by white rot. If such has unfoitunate- 

 ly been the case, there, for a century or more, this huge 

 log will remain, till it gradually crumbles ; but if not, and 

 it is free of injury or *wind shakes,' while there is no ap- 

 pearance of the sap having already ascended, and its 

 pores are altogether sound, they proceed to take its meas- 

 urement. Its shape ascertained, and the timber that is 

 fit for use laid out by the aid of models, which, like frag- 

 ments of the skeleton of a ship, show the forms and sizes 

 required, the * hewers ' commence their labors. 



" Thus, reader, perhaps every known hummock in the 

 Floridas is annually attacked ; and so often does it hap- 

 pen that the white rot, or some other disease, has deteri- 

 orated the quality of the timber, that the woods may be 

 seen strev/n with trunks that have been found worthless, 

 so that every year these valuable oaks are becoming 

 scarcer. The destruction of the young trees of this spe- 

 cies, caused by the fall of the great trunks, is of course 

 immense ; and as there are no artificial plantations of 

 these trees in our country, before long a good-sized live 

 oak will be so valuable, that its owner will exact an 

 enormous price for it, even while it yet stands in the 

 wood. In my opinion, formed on personal observation, 

 live-oak hummocks are not quite as plentiful as they are 

 represented to be ; and of this I will give you one illus- 

 tration. 



"On the 25th of February, 1832, I happened to be 

 far up St. John's River, East Florida, in company with a 

 person employed by our government in protecting the *live 

 oaks' of that section of the country, and who received a 

 good salary for his trouble. While we were proceeding 

 along one of the banks of that most singular river, my 

 companion pointed out some large hummocks of dark- 

 leaved trees on the opposite side, which he said were en- 

 tirely formed of live oaks. I thought differently, and as 



