STUDIES IN NATURE 



fashion. This property varies very much accord- 

 ing to the place in which the trees are grown, 

 and is not always the same even in trees of the 

 same sort ; indeed, one tree will sometimes show 

 both directions of twist. The growth of the 

 tree is evidently in an upward spiral or curved 

 direction, and when such a tree is cut down and 

 sawn into planks we shall have a kind of timber 

 that is apt to warp. 



Forests and woods give shelter to a great 

 many different sorts of animals, none of which 

 do them much harm, except rabbits, which are 

 so mischievous that we ought never to see them 

 where trees are properly valued. Rabbits are 

 not native English animals, but were brought 

 in from rocky districts in the south of Europe, 

 and have been allowed to spoil a great deal of 

 country. 



In times of war, forests are often burnt or 

 cut down to prevent people from hiding in them, 

 and on this account large forests were destroyed 

 in England during the Civil Wars. In Scotland 

 and Ireland the same destruction has taken place, 

 and the districts have not been replanted, for it 

 is unfortunately far easier to cut down trees than 

 to replant them. 



The most useful trees are generally found to 

 be those which give us the hardest wood, and it 

 is quite easy to get some idea of the hardness 

 of the different sorts of wood by getting pieces 

 from the trees themselves, or from the carpenter, 



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