212 
RURAL HOURS. 
stumps about two hundred years old ; those of three hundred 
are not rare, and occasionally we have seen one which we be- 
lieved to claim upward of four hundred rings. But as a rule, 
the largest trees are singled out very early in the history of a 
settlement, and many of these older stumps of the largest size 
have now become so worn and rap-o-ed, that it is seldom one can 
count the circles accurately. They are often much injured by 
fire immediately after the tree has been felled, and in many other 
instances decay has been at work at the heart, and one cannot, 
perhaps, covmt more than half the rings ; measuring will help, in 
such cases, to give some idea ; by taking fifty rings of the sound 
part, and allowing the same distance of the decayed portion for 
another fifty. But this is by no means a sure way, since the rings 
vary very much in the same tree, some being so broad that they 
must have sensibly increased the circumference of the trunk in 
one year, to the extent, perhaps, of an inch, while in other parts 
of the same shaft you will find a dozen circles crowded into that 
space. In short, it is seldom one has the satisfaction of meeting 
with a stump in which one may count every ring with perfect 
accuracy. It is said that some of the pines on the Pacific coast, 
those of Oregon and California, have numbered nine hundred 
rings ; these were the noble Lambert pines of that region. Prob- 
ably very few of our own white pines can show more than half 
that number of circles. 
It is often said, as an excuse for leaving none standing, that 
these old trees of forest growth will not live after their compan- 
ions have been felled ; they miss the protection which one gives 
to another, and, exposed to the winds, soon fall to the ground. 
As a general rule, this may be true ; but if one is inclined to be- 
