THE WOODS. 137 



lower limbs of long ago have all died and fallen, be- 

 cause existence was denied them in the darkness beneath 

 the thick crowns, these under branches thus decaying 

 aside in a well-ordered system of natural pruning, so 

 essential (this removal of the superfluous limbs) for 

 producing the long, clear trunks suitable for lumber, 

 and minimizing, too, the number of knots in the wood. 

 The other, our brother of the meadow, is afforded its 

 native expansion, develops a full crown and limbs close 

 to the ground, and is therefore of no value except as 

 a shade-tree or for firewood. Yet the tree in the 

 forest — though sometimes distorted because of other 

 trees having fallen upon it, or because its roots do not 

 have a fair hold, growing upon the edge of a depres- 

 sion, and hence leaning and bending, or for similar 

 causes — has a wildness to it, an appearance of age and 

 of moss-clad austerity, which is likely to be lacking In 

 its neighbor of the fields. The old trees, even In their 

 nearness to each other, seem to stand, after all, apart, 

 in silent, unapproachable, lofty dignity, time-worn land-' 

 marks, the grandeur of the virgin forest. 



What a place, therefore, the old woods is for light 

 on the trees' individual histories. That young elm 

 yonder, still alive but bent to the ground, and with Its 

 tip buried in the earth, was evidently brought thus low 

 by a larger tree in Its downward fall, so fastening the 

 sapling's top that It was never released. The dead log 

 there testifies to that. From whatever cause the old 

 tree fell. Its descent has caused new shoots to spring up 

 all over the deflected sapling, which finally will detach 

 Itself from Its rotting tip and partially erect itself again. 

 But its trunk, when it grows Into a tree, will be crooked 



