Clearing 225 



beechlands of the Ohio, Tennessee, and Cum- 

 berland River valleys, into cultivated fields. 

 Still, the clearing was not done in a wink — 

 and it was thus the birds vanished, as a fea- 

 ture of the year. Every fall, a close watcher 

 sees flocks of a hundred or two, flurry in the 

 well-known wavering line across a morning 

 or evening sky. 



A pigeon roost untouched bears to this day 

 the mark of the birds. Two years of roost- 

 ing killed all the big trees. Guano of any 

 kind thickly applied kills every sort of vege- 

 tation. Beside this embarrassment of soil- 

 riches, the trees had lost so many limbs, they 

 had nowhere to bud and put out saving leaves. 

 Trees forking a little way up had been riven 

 in two by the weight of the pigeon mass. 

 Undergrowth had been killed, or trampled 

 down. Sometimes even fire had added to 

 the desolation. A lantern overset found plenty 

 of inflammable stuff to start a lively burn- 

 ing. Thunderstorms — pocket cyclones — 

 are plenty in Tennessee, particularly along 

 the creek and river valleys. They soon blew 

 down the dead trees or twisted them off two 

 yards above ground and flung the trunks cross- 

 and-pile among the sickly, struggling saplings 

 which alone survived. The saplings had not 

 been branchy enough to serve as roosts, when 

 there were big trees handy. 



