24 TREES AND TREE-PLANTING. 
we found an indefinite and unsatisfactory undertaking. 
They were very close and blended together. There is 
no doubt that the largest trees were in existence before 
the Christian era—possibly as long ago as the building 
of Rome. The growth here is so dense there is very lit- 
tle foliage as compared with the size of the trunk, and 
the limbs do not often start nearer than one hundred and 
fifty feet from the ground. The tree-bole holds its di- 
ameter remarkably uniform in its upward growth, and 
will usually be two feet thick within fifteen feet of the 
top, where it seems to be broken off at the limit of the 
fog-line. There is no object at hand affording the spec- 
tator an adequate standard of comparison by which the 
eye may measure the vast height of these trees, which 
would far out-top the steeple of Trinity Church. 
“ Away in the depth of these big woods we found a soli- 
tary cow, belonging to the mill. She was quietly rumi- 
nating, and seemed glad of companionship. That she was 
a civilized animal was shown by the polished brass tips 
on her horns. She was very gentle, and suffered us to 
pat her neck, while she stopped chewing her cud and put 
out her. nose, breathing big breaths fragrant of milk and 
grassy: odors. 
“Returning, a couple of hours were spent wandering 
about the mill, where a dozen four-horse teams were 
loading lumber at the big piles. Afterwards a stroll of 
a few rods to see long-armed Davis, in his ‘shirt-sleeves,’ 
swinging in the slow, steady strokes with his long-handled 
axe, as he opened an eight-foot notch in the side of a 
three-hundred-footer. He stood on the ground at his 
work, but once in a while stopped to walk half way 
around the tree, or shut one eye and look up with the 
other, as though mentally engaged in taking its weight 
and in calculating to the fraction of an inch the devia- 
tion from its proper course that any probable force might 
exercise on its fall. 
“Once ten rods away, bound for the settlements, the 
