294 IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS 



a sweeping field of rye, and in those brief thirty- 

 years they have reached an average height of about 

 thirty to thirty-five feet and the largest trees a 

 diameter of eight inches. In most places, however, 

 they are smaller, because a second, even a third and 

 the beginnings of a fourth crop have been grown, 

 springing from the old stubs and thus forming 

 clumps, as many, often, as six healthy trees stand- 

 ing like a stiff bouquet. Though they are called 

 gray birches, to distinguish them from the large 

 white birch (the paper, or canoe, birch), they are 

 actually snowy white themselves, with black, tri- 

 angular markings under the spring of each branch, 

 and as you enter their deep shadow, especially in 

 spring when the foliage is a vivid, virginal green, 

 and as you tread on the yielding carpet beneath of 

 prince's pine, the effect is of a shimmering, delicate 

 wood in fairyland. In winter their twiggery is a 

 soft lavender, and lays a belt of rich color along the 

 snowy mountain-side. 



Few people know how to use an ax, and of those 

 who do, not all have the endurance to keep the pace 

 steadily all day long. I can swing a cleek or a mid- 

 iron with tolerable accuracy — that is, I generally 

 hit the ball. But I am by no means so certain of 

 hitting where I wish to with my ax-blade. To take 

 a birch off neatly, with the minimum of stump, it 

 is necessary to make a deep downward cut on the 

 side toward which you wish it to fall, and then a 

 horizontal cut at the base of this incision, to remove 

 the big chip. If your ax is sharp and your blow 

 powerful, one good downward cut on the rear side, 

 if it is struck at the right point, will now cause the 



