172 IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS 



young evergreens are tolerant of considerable shade 

 and can reach a sturdy size under a hardwood stand, 

 and that hardwood seeds will sprout under the dense 

 cover of evergreens, where the conifers' own seeds 

 fail to germinate. Though the hardwood seedlings 

 die speedily, yet there is always a little new cover 

 of them waiting a chance, and when the evergreen 

 forest is cut down, there they are, so well started 

 ahead of the evergreen seeds that they easily take 

 possession of the new stand. Even if they had not 

 already sprouted, they would .outstrip evergreens 

 from an even start. 



Directly in front of me here, on the crest of the 

 cliff, is a mixed stand of hardwoods with sunny open 

 glades, gardens of ferns and smooth false fox- 

 gloves, of wild grape and red osier dogwood and the 

 delicate little white blooms of the hog peanut (they 

 are pure white on my cliffs, not pink or purple). 

 Everywhere through this open stand, mixing freely 

 with the maple, oak, and chestnut saplings, are 

 young pines and hemlocks, of every size from tiny 

 year-old seedlings to trees six and eight feet tall. 

 When these latter are pines they are sometimes 

 dying in the shadow, but in the sunny glades they 

 have pushed up two feet of new leader this season. 

 They and the hemlocks are ready to dispute the 

 ground the moment the hard timber is cut off. 



But just back of my cabin, on a rocky plateau, is 

 a dense stand of pure hemlock, a young stand, I 

 should say not over thirty or forty years of age. 

 The little conifers march right up to the edge of this 

 and there they stop abruptly. Sitting in my chair, 

 I can look in under the hemlocks, up the mysterious 



