664 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



sprouts, in groups of three or four or more, springing 

 from the roots of an old stump, cut perhaps in making a 

 clearing, forty years before. They look like excellent 

 telephone poles, but when cut it is found that their stems 

 often are hollow with decay to a height of eight or ten 

 feet above the ground. All this has a lesson for those 

 who for sentimental reasons would preserve the stump of 

 a favorite tree in the front yard or upon the lawn, camou- 

 flaging the sordidness of its decay with woodbine or 

 trumpet creeper. Such a stump will never thrive again 

 and with due respect to Job, "the tender branch thereof" 

 will "cease." More than that, it harbors many varieties 

 of fungi and pestiferous insects which latter are a menace 

 to other vegetation, although the species of fungi of 

 dead trees do not attack the living. It follows that in 

 scientific tree felling it is not necessary to consider the 

 stump provided it is cut near enough to the ground to 

 prevent waste of wood. 



Horace Greeley must have acquired his fondness for 

 wielding the ax in the five years which he spent as a 

 youth working upon his father's farm at Westhaven, Ver- 

 mont, and that he continued it in advanced life as a 





HORACE GREELEY AS A TREE CHOPPER 



COLONEL ROOSEVELT MAKING THE CHIPS FLY 



means of exercise and recreation is attested by the picture 

 which represents him in shirt sleeves with a large ax 

 over his shoulder ready to cope with any giant of the 

 forest. His biographer states that much of his early 

 reading was done by the light of pine knots after the 

 day's farm work was done, and he doubtless contributed 

 to their cutting. 



It is only fair to state that tree felling, like the sport 

 of boxing, may at times be used as an appeal to the baser 

 passions of mankind. Thus the former Kaiser is re- 

 ]5orted to have turned to it as a vent for his emotions 

 at a time of life when checkers or backgammon might 

 seem more alluring. There is, however, no fixed age 



