ADVENTURES WITH AN AX 



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acres of larger timber — white oaks, maples, chestnut, 

 poplars, ash, hemlocks, pines, great canoe-birches. 

 But I do not need to go so far. Here, directly at 

 the pasture-top, are twenty acres or more of gray 

 birch, in a dense, exclusive stand, making as indi- 

 vidual and fairy a little forest as ever you saw. 



They cut easily, and though they burn easily, too, 

 yet there are so many of them, and they grow so 

 near and renew themselves from the stumps so 

 quickly, that it would not pay to go higher for 

 harder wood. The tops, moreover, are useful for 

 wattle fences, and make the best pea-brush to be 

 had. They grow where only a generation ago was 



