296 IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS 



acre of potential pine forest, which is in itself suf- 

 ficiently exciting. As I trim out the network of 

 lower dead birch twigs, or cut down a half-dozen 

 clumps of the trees, almost invariably I am rewarded 

 by the discovery of a pine, sometimes actually 

 growing in the very midst of a birch cluster, its seed 

 having lodged and germinated in the mold of the 

 old stump. Then great care has to be taken in 

 removing the birches around it. Sometimes it is a 

 hemlock I come upon, and occasionally a cedar. 

 But, save for canoe-birches scattered here and there 

 among the gray (occasionally a tree will be so crossed 

 that it is almost impossible to say which variety 

 it belongs to), there are almost no hardwoods in 

 the stand. The shade is too dense for the seeds to 

 germinate. The predominant succession is white 

 pine, and for every blow of my ax and every crash 

 of a birch to the ground I have the sensation that 

 I am, in effect, planting a pine-tree to take its place. 



I dream, as I chop, of the forest to be. 



Then, as I chop, there are noises which must be 

 attended to. Have you ever sat in a canoe, on still 

 water under a bridge, as a team drove by overhead, 

 and heard the fine, delicate tinkle of the dust, shaken 

 down between the planks, as it hit the water? 

 When my first blow hits a birch-tree it is followed 

 by the same delicate tinkle, the tinkle of a myriad 

 little dry seed-pods raining down upon the snow — 

 a curious echo to the resonant blow of an ax ! There 

 is, too, always the faint, dry harping of the wind in 

 the twiggery, perhaps the wiry cheep of a chickadee 

 from the depths of the woods, or his cheerful dee- 

 dee, sometimes the scolding caw of a crow, again the 



