TREE FELLING AS A SPORT 



665 



limit to the sport of tree cutting, covering as it does, the 

 seven ages of man, from the youth of Washington to the 

 old age of Gladstone. One may picture the whilom 

 Kaiser going forth with eager strides, battle-ax in hand, 

 to slay the oncoming cohorts of the Allies as represented 

 to his distorted mind by the serried ranks of the Dutch 

 beeches, he being arrayed erewhile in the majesty of 

 Dutch breeches, and as he "strafs" and "strafs" one 

 n-:ay almost hear him mutter between clenched teeth, 

 "take that and tliat and THAT," very much as one might 

 chastise a most obstreperous boy in the woodshed ! 



But it is a poor tree that does not grow both ways and 

 in Jonathan's parable, (Judges IX, 8), we read: "The 

 trees went forth on a time to annoint a King over 

 them." One after another, however, all declined as being 

 otherwise n:ore usefully employed in growing roots and 

 branches and so they finally 

 were reduced to electing a 

 bramble ! 



A fondness for the sport 

 of tree felling leads one 

 naturally to an interest in 

 forestry and to observa- 

 tion of the habits, forms 

 and varieties of individual 

 trees, their rate of growth, 

 their relations to each other 

 in their struggle upward 

 tu the light and air in 

 densely covered areas, and 

 further to their economic 

 value and the specializa- 

 tion in the uses of the 

 different kinds of 

 wood. 



Each species of tree in 

 addition to general uses 

 such as those of firewood, 

 boarding, etc., has one or 

 several special uses for 

 which it is peculiarly fitted. 

 1 hese oftentimes are sug- 

 gested on cutting down the 

 tree through noting its 

 relative hardness, its graining, mode and degree of split- 

 ting, etc. Thus the chestnut is selected for the frame- 

 work of pianos and cofiins to be veneered afterward with 

 other woods which take a better polish. The willow is 

 used in manufacturing black powder and artificial legs. 



the poplar for fruit boxes, spools, etc. Moreover, each 

 tree is its own biographer, and the cross section of even 

 a long-time cut and decaying stump presents an open 

 page to one who has learned to read it. From the bark 

 and grain of the wood is to be told the species and from- 

 the number of concentric rings the age, for the growing 

 tree must form a new ring each year. More than this, 

 the thickness of the rings varies with the seasonal con- 

 ditions of light, air currents and moisture, so that under 

 exceptionally favorable conditions the rings may be two 

 or three times the average width. In illustration of this 

 is the following incident: One day while crossing a re- 

 cent clearing in a New England forest I noticed an ex- 

 ceptionally large stump cut quite close to the ground. 

 Its bark and graining, porosity, etc., showed it to be 

 the remains of a giant tulip tree with 119 rings, indi- 

 cating an unusual age for a 

 forest tree of that species 

 in that locality. But count- 

 ing back thirty rings from 

 the margin was one which 

 was more than double the 

 width of the others. This 

 meant that in some manner 

 in that year the tree had 

 had access to more than 

 its usual share of light, air 

 currents and moisture, and 

 it was easy to guess that 

 30 years before the lot had 

 previously been cut over. 

 Coming down the moun- 

 tainside I met the son of 

 the old man that orig- 

 inally owned the forest. 

 "Jim," said I, "when was 

 that lot cleared?" "Oh, a 

 couple of years ago." 

 "Anyone could see that," I 

 said, "but when before 

 then?" for, like almost all 

 Xew England forests, it 

 had been cut over several 

 times. At first he could 

 not recall, but suddenly he 

 father bought the farm 

 was to clear that lot." 

 And thus 



Photograph by UnderwooU & Under *vood 

 HENRV FORD CHOPPING FIREWOOD 



said "it was the year my 

 and the first thing he did 

 "But when was that?" "Thirty years ago. 

 came the proof that the old giant had written its biog- 

 raphy correctly. 



ANNOUNCEMENT 



The American Forestry Association has moved from 1214 Sixteenth Street to 914 Fourteenth 

 Street, Washington, D. C, from which office all business will be transacted. 



Members of the Association are invited to visit the new headquarters of their Association. 



