.Dec. 17, 1S98.J 
Forest and stream. 
4 8 3 
our times. Near' the camp a spring sent a rivulet of 
sweet water trickling across the sand of the beach. 
As we sat that night by our generous camp-fire of dry 
balsam logs there was a sense of complete isolation from 
rhe civilized world. The silence was profound and un- 
broken, except by the owls and the ripple of the small 
waves on the beach. We were on the shore of a lake 
unvisited save by trappers and by the enemies of the 
primitive pines, who made a foray against them through 
this region forty years ago. Until our visit probably no 
white woman had seen its wild waters. 
That there were many native dwellers in these soli- 
tudes was shown by the multitude of tracks of birds and 
small animals that we saw on the sand when we landed. 
No doubt the smooth beach was a promenade for all the 
residents in the vicinity. 
The morning after our arrival we set out in our canoe 
to gratify the anglers' curiosity and test the unknown 
waters. They responded generously, and yielded to the 
cast of our two lines 55lbs. of fish in two hours and a 
half. The average weight was about 6lbs. They in- 
cluded the maskinonge, pike and the namaycush. The 
last differed from any of the great lake trout we had 
seen, in that the flesh was of exceedingly delicate tex- 
ture and of a light pink color. All these different fish 
were caught in the same deep water, by the side of a long 
ledge of rocks. The largest lake trout we captured 
weighed Sj^lbs. The largest maskinonge weighed 2olbs. 
His capture was the event of the day and a topic for the 
camp-fire talk at night. 
The adjoining woods abounded with partridges, very 
simple-minded and familiar. Mink were plentiful, run- 
ning in and out among the rocks along the shore, and 
an improvised trap yielded one as a specimen. 
We remained several days and unwillingly folded our 
tents for the return to the higher civilization of Lac la 
Peche. 
On our way back we came upon a trapper's camp in the 
woods which exhibited the results of many an assault by 
the owner upon the wild beasts and birds. Wooden 
frames were scattered among the trees, on which skins 
of bears and other fur-bearing creatures had been 
stretched. Bits of fur were still fluttering from their 
edges and lying on the duff, and feathers, wings and feet 
of ducks and partridges littered the ground about the 
cabin. These, with scattered skulls and bones of bears 
and smaller game, told the story of the successful hunter 
and trapper. s 
Behind the camp was a grassy ravine, the green path- 
way of a small brook, a haunt evidently of mink, for 
there we found a trap, a miniature deadfall, offering its 
treacherous hospitality to the little brown traveler. The 
owner of the camp was not there, but we learned after- 
ward that he was an educated Frenchman. of good name 
who, following the example of sojme of his countrymen 
in the early days of the Canadian colony, had buried him- 
self in the wilderness, living upon his wild companions, 
but still retaining connection with civilization, from time 
,to time visiting Montreal and Quebec. 
At another place in the woods were the antlers of a 
caribou, but these had been shed by the living animal 
and had lain for a winter on the ground, being much 
gnawed by woodmice. Although shed every yea r , the 
antlers are seldom found. Go where you will in these 
woods, the red squirrel is always your companion. 
Wander to the remotest depths of the forest and the 
vivacious little animal darts in front of you, or in a state of 
high nervous excitement chatters to you or sc-olds you 
from the thick tree tops. The ground under the trees is 
littered with the husks of his repast. 
During our trip we saw in their native haunts the 
moose, the black bear, minks, partridges, blue herons, 
hawks, loons, wild ducks, large red-headed woodpeckers, 
owls and the friendly moosebird, besides a variety of 
small birds. 
The fishing for trout (fontinalis) was all that an am- 
bitious angler could desire. We found them to be unso- 
phisticated, as becomes trout of wilderness waters, bold 
and reckless in taking the fly, often impatiently vaulting 
out of the water to meet it as it fluttered downward 
through the air. They were good fighters, their activity 
being stimulated no doubt by the coolness of the waters. 
The weather was fine; we had only two rainy days on 
our trip. The climate of the region in summer is agree- 
able, the days are warm and sunny, the nights cool 
enough for blankets in camp. 
There is an occasional frost late in August, but the 
grasses by the shores and in the meadows retain their 
summer colors until the middle of September. There 
are few heavy rainfalls until October. I remember one", 
however, in the year 1894, early in September. We had 
just returned after a long outing to the La Peche camp, 
and were scarcely under the shingled roof, when the worst 
storm of years set in. It came up from the southern At- 
lantic coast. The rain fell continuously for twenty-four 
hours, driven by a gale of wind. Streams ran through 
the camp. The air was full of sounds of the woods, most 
of all the dull roar of the deep masses .moved by the 
tempest. The forest trees, usually so imperturbable and 
serene, seemed to exult in the tumult. They tossed their 
arms aloft and shook the. water from their glistening 
leaves in showery spray. 
All the bridges on the wood road to the settlement 
below were torn away by the torrents. Philerum, the 
guardian, who, rain or shine, daily traveled the twenty 
miles to and from the mail station, was compelled to 
swim his horse across the swollen, bridgeless streams 
and chop away the trees that had fallen across the forest 
road. The earth of the low mountain opposite the camp 
became saturated with water, and at intervals along its 
side broke loose from its ancient bed and slid down into 
the lake, carrying with it rocks and trees, making a 
clatter and roar and splashing fascinating to hear and 
see. 
But in the morning of the second day the sun rose 
in a cloudless sky, and the usual fine weather of the 
Canadian summer was with us again. 
Joseph W. How£. 
A correspondent of a Quebec paper says: "Trout 
are so plentiful in Granville Moss that while one man is 
fishing for them another is obliged to stand by the 
hook, with a stick, to prevent more than one from biting 
at a time!" 
Trees. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
1 had expected that Mr. Hardy's questions about trees 
wou d receive a full answer before this from some one 
familiar with the subject. Up to date, Nov. 30, no com- 
plete answer has appeared, and as I am snowed in, with 
spare time on my hands, I will answer the questions 
to the best of my knowledge. 
If I should make technical mistakes, will the experts 
please correct me, withholding sarcastic criticism. Being 
snowed in, I am unable to get to a library for books of 
reference, and must depend wholly on memory. How- 
ever, I think I can trust my memory, for the subject is 
one to which I have devoted much time in study and 
experiment. 
1 shall divide Mr. Hardy's questions, and shall number 
them for convenience. 
No. 1.— "Is the sap in the same tree all of the same 
quality in every particular?" 
Answer.— No, there are two kinds of sap in all trees— 
the crude sap that is imbibed by the roots and ascends 
through the wood cells to the leaves, and the elaborated 
sap so called after it undergoes a chemical process in 
the leaves, which flows to every growing part of the tree. 
No -. 2.— "If so, how does part make bark, part leaves, 
and in case of nut and fruit-bearing trees, the fruit? 
In case of a nut-bearing tree, if the sap is all the same, 
how does part form the shell and part the meat of the 
nut? 
Answer— These questions would indicate that your 
correspondent is unacquainted with nature's plan of veg- 
etation. Perhaps he asks the questions with a feeling 
that they cannot be answered, and- he would be right in 
so far as brief answers are concerned. His questions 
are as broad as the whole vegetable kingdom, and can 
be completely answered only by a comprehensive de- 
scription of nature's plan for vegetable growth. 
I suppose it is understood in a general way that plants 
purify the air for animals, and manufacture all the food 
which they require, Plants purify the air by decom- 
posing carbonic acid gas, releasing the oxvgen and re- 
taining the carbon to help make vegetable tissue. Plants 
make food for animal life by changing inorganic matter 
into organic matter, largely making use of the gases 
which compose air and water. This sort of book argu- 
ment is all right for the initiated, but it is all Greek to the 
average reader, so I will get down to business and try 
to show what a tree is and how it makes growth. 
If we examine a flower soon after blossoming with 
a microscope,- we find a little sac in the ovule, which is 
called the embryo sac. At one end of the sac we should 
see a roundish substance, like an atom of pulp. No 
action looking to growth takes place unless the ovule 
is acted upon by pollen. When acted upon, the little 
atom of ptilp commences to grow and becomes a cell. 
The cell divides and continues to increase by division 
until it becomes the plantlet in the seed. The plantlet 
usually consists of a stem, a rootlet and seed leaves. 
Take a squash seed and examine it, and we find the meat 
in halves, and the halves are seed leaves and grow out of 
the ground, and perform the work of true leaves. The 
nutriment that caused, the plantlet to grow was stored 
in the seed leaves or meat, Without the nutriment 
stored in the seed leaves, the squash could not grow. The 
nutriment was stored beforehand, and this is nature's 
plan of growth from the seed. There are changes almost 
without number, but they can be traced to a common 
design. Sometimes the seed leaves are so changed as to 
be unable to perform the functions of leaves, like the nuts 
of trees, which remain underground. The maple tree 
seed sends its seed leaves to the light like the squash. 
If Mr. Hardy will examine an acorn he will find an 
outside and an inside covering, and the kernel or meat. 
He will discover that the kernel is divided. The halves 
are seed leaves, and he will find a short stem connected 
to these seed leaves that, when growth takes place, pushes 
the main stem and rootlet out of the kernel, the former 
to grow up into light and air, the latter to grow down 
in darkness and moisture. 
Sap does not take part in the growth until the nutri- 
ment in the seed leaves has provided leaves. Crude 
sap must have leaves before it can assist growth. 
Branches are but repetitions of the first growth. A 
branch is implanted in the stem, while a stem is im- 
planted in the ground. Branches grow from buds that 
were formed during a former season. Nutrition was 
stored in the buds to start the branches into growth, just 
as the plantlet was started by the nutrition in the nut. 
The crude sap does not start growth in the spring, but 
awaits the leaves provided by buds. The buds start to 
grow in this locality when the thermometer registers 42 0 
or 43 0 . I have seen leaves in February, and have known 
a warm spell in the fall to open many buds. All the 
buds on a tree do not grow. As there is a bud and 
sometimes several in. the axis of every leaf, it would be 
impossible for the tree to maintain such an enormous 
growth. I sometimes see black cherry trees completely 
stripped of leaves by the tent caterpillar. In such cases 
the dormant buds provide new leaves. Nature seldom 
gets left. 
We found by examining the blossom that plant life 
started from a single cell. That by division it grew to 
a plantlet. The plantlet also increases by division until 
the result is a simple plant or a. full-grown tree, as the 
case may be. 
Every part of the tree is made up of individual cells. 
The cells are filled with various substances, but we will 
now look to the cell walls, as they make the framework 
of the tree. We will inquire what sap has to do with the 
walls of the cells. Does sap take part in the growth 
of this important part of a tree? 
Chemists have discovered that cell walls are composed 
of a material called cellulose. Cellulose is a combina- 
tion of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Water is com- 
posed of the two gases, hydrogen and oxygen. As the 
roots of trees imbibe water, which passes up to the leaves, 
the two gases are provided ready made. How about 
the carbon? Carbon is indissoluble, therefore we must 
look for something in a fluid state that the crude sap 
or water can carry to the leaves, there to be decom- 
posed and tht- carbon released. Carbonic acid gas just 
fills the want. Water can absoib it bulk fur bulk We 
see this in the soda fountain, it is composed of oxygen 
and carbon. The crude sap conveys it to the leaves. 
Here it is decomposed, the oxygen is released into the 
air, and the carbon enters into combination with 
water to form cellulose. Cellulose is conveyed to every 
growing part of the tree, and is formed into cells. Tt 
is carried by the elaborated sap to the cambium layer, 
where the inside cells form wood cells, while the outside 
cells form bark cells. The leaves, buds, fruit and flowers 
arc composed of cells, and the cellulose was stored up 
beforehand in the leaf buds and fruit buds. 
Now, we see that the tree has a chemical laboratory, 
where it creates material entering into its construction. 
It does this through the aid . of the green grains of 
matter in the cells of leaves, but only in sunlight. Mr. 
Hardy will have to guess how this is done, the same as 
everybody else does. The cells contain nutriment, such 
as starch, sugar, proteine, etc. Starch is composed of 
carbon and water; it is formed in the leaves and is con- 
veyed in a liquid form to all parts of the tree where 
needed. It forms the flour of wheat, corn, rye, etc. 
Proteine is also brought into existence in the chemical 
workshop. It is a combination of carbon, hydrogen, 
oxygen and ammonia. It is said to make seeds nutri- 
tious beyond everything in vegetable growth, and with- 
out much change; it is said to form the flesh, sinews 
and bones of animals, at least the animal part of bones. 
I do not mention other properties created by the 
plant or tree in its laboratory, such as oil, jelly, etc., 
because I have called attention to enough to show that 
by a chemical process the tree is able to create any 
needed material, and to convey it to any part of its 
structure. But why or how the tree selects the proper 
material is a mystery too deep for the human mind. 
Proof, that the tree can and does make a selection, there 
is in abundance. 
Space prevents my dwelling on this subject. I hope 
I have been able to set Mr. Hardy to thinking. If so 
he will come out all right. 
No. 3. — "Also if the sap is all the same, how is it that 
some kinds of apples, like the Baldwin, only bear in 
any quantity on alternate years. If it is the same sap 
and the quantity is sufficient, why is not the same effect 
produced every year, instead of regularly on each alter- 
nate year, while in other varieties it is done nearly every 
year? 
Answer. — The Baldwin bears every other year in or- 
dinary soil because the original seedling froni which it 
sprung bore that way. The cion or bud will give the 
characteristics of the original tree. If Mr. Hardy should 
ask me why the original tree bore every other year, that 
would be another question. I have an opinion, and that 
is that it was caused by a lack of pollen. 
Apple trees bloom in clusters, but bear one apple to 
the cluster usually. Wild apples seem to bear in clusters 
largely, which would indicate that there were few sterile 
flowers in the beginning. The increase in the size of the 
cultivated fruit has claimed the pollen of a whole flower 
cluster, and I believe it almost impossible for a Baldwin 
tree to grow its enormous crop and provide at the 
same time perfect fruit buds for another season. I 
have noticed a good bloom without- fruit. This would 
indicate that fruit buds were set the season before, but 
that they were imperfect. It is my opinion that when the 
tree was providing nutriment for the buds it fell short on 
the pollen. I have known Baldwins to bear every year 
with extra cultivation. Hermit. 
Massachuktts. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Another very interesting subject, "Trees," has been 
receiving attention at the hands of several of your able 
contributors. The communications of Mr. Hardy and 
Mr. C. H. Ames especially have stirred within myself 
the scribbling spirit. I don't believe I can contribute 
much solid information on the subject under discussion — 
the movement of sap in trees — but I have reflected a 
good deal about the matter, and have sought informa- 
tion from "the authorities." My information is meager, 
but perhaps my reflections and deductions will be re- 
ceived with tolerance at least. 
The most definite expression on the latter point that 
has come to my notice is that the force employed is 
partly capillary and partly chemical, neither of which do 
we comprehend any better than we do the force of grav- 
ity, which is no comprehension at all. This is vague 
enough, and simply means that, so far as I am informed, 
we know nothing at all about it. Mr. Ames' suggestion 
that the whole question is embodied in that tremendous 
mystery, the "life principle," is probably as near a 
solution as will ever be attained. 
The statement that a growing squash sustained a 
pressure of 3,ooolbs. is rather staggering. Fancy a 
3,ooolb. pile hammer being let down ever so _ gently 
upon any kind of a squash. There would certainly be 
more kinds of a squash than one in the mix-up. 
As to the question of the return of the sap to the 
ground, I believe the fact is fully recognized that it does 
not so return, after its function of making new tissue has 
been performed; at least not in the way supposed. There 
is a downward as well as upward movement going on 
all the time during the active periods of growth. 
Water is drawn up from the ground through the agency 
of the roots, which also possess a selective capacity 
for choosing out the nitrogenous and phosphate com- 
pounds, with some others which the soil contributes. 
These are carried up to the topmost branches, where they 
enter into combination with the carbonic acid taken in by 
the leaves from the atmosphere, while oxygen and water 
are thrown off by the leaves. Since the carbon thus 
accumulated constitutes by far the largest part of the 
bulk of wood fiber in the tree, it follows that the 
principal part, if not the entire substance, of which it is 
composed, must descend from the leaves, reaching even 
to the extremities of the roots, as being the process 
by which all growth is achieved. 
The fact that sugar is composed almost exclusively 
of carbon, which is supplied solely by the atmosphere, 
through the agency of the leaves, points to the related 
fact that the sap which yields the sugar, at whatever 
