ON TIMBER TREES 



tinguished as characteristic of the species, and as 

 not by any chance having grown on any other 

 kind of tree. 



Then, too, if the hickory tree were felled and 

 cut into fire wood, the texture and fiber of the 

 wood itself enabled anyone who glanced at it to 

 pronounce it hickory as definitely and with as 

 much certitude as if he had seen the tree while 

 living and in full leaf. No other wood had quite 

 the same whiteness, quite the same strength and 

 elasticity of fiber. 



The Indians had learned this in the old days, 

 and had used the hickory of a preference always 

 in making their bows. 



We boys, in our barbaric age, followed the 

 Indians 'example. We knew that a bow of hickory 

 had shooting qualities that no other bow could 

 hope to match. 



All in all, then, the hickory, despite the triviali- 

 ties of variation which are mentioned in the pre- 

 ceding chapter, stands apart when we come to 

 scrutinize it comprehensively, as a tree differing 

 from all others and obviously entitled to stand as 

 a unified and differentiated species. 



And what is true of the hickory is no less true 

 of each and every species of tree in our forest. 

 Each walnut and oak and beech and birch and 

 pine and linden and locust has a thousand points 



[159] 



