100 RAMBLES OF 



tury, so extensive and powerful are its roots, so firm 

 and stubborn the original knitting of its giant frame. 

 At length some storm, more furious than all its pre- 

 decessors, wrenches those ponderous roots from the 

 soil, and hurls the helpless carcass to the earth, 

 crushing all before it in its fall. Without the aid 

 of fire, or some peculiarity of situation favourable to 

 rapid decomposition, full another hundred years will 

 be requisite to reduce it to its elements, and oblite- 

 rate the traces of its existence. Indeed, long after 

 the lapse of more than that period, we find the heart 

 of the pitch-pine still preserving its original form, 

 and, from being thoroughly imbued with turpentine, 

 become utterly indestructible except by fire. 



If the proprietor attend to the warnings affordexl 

 by the wood-pecker, he may always cut his pines in 

 time to prevent them from being injured by insects. 

 The wood-peckers run up and around the trunks, 

 tapping from time to time with their powerful bill. 

 The bird knows at once by the sound whether there 

 be insects below or not. If the tree is sound, the 

 wood-pecker soon forsakes it for another : should he 

 begin to break into the bark, it is to catch the worm ; 

 and such trees are at once to be marked for the axe 

 In felling such pines, I found the woodmen always 

 anxious to avoid letting them strike against neigh- 

 bouring sound trees, as they said that the insects 

 more readily attacked an injured tree than one 

 whose bark was unbroken. The observation is most 

 probably correct; at least the experience of country 

 folks in such matters is rarely wrong, though they 



