AMERICAN FOREST TREES. 
276 
of such extraordinary height. Individuals of the several spe¬ 
cies mentioned in Dr. Williams’s table, are now hardly to be 
found in the same climate, exceeding one half or at most two 
thirds of the height which he assigns to them ; but, except in 
the case of the oak and the pine, the diameter stated by him 
would not be thought very extraordinary in trees of far less 
height, now standing. Even in the species I have excepted, 
those diameters, with half the heights of Dr. Williams, might 
perhaps be paralleled at the present time ; and many elms, 
transplanted, at a diameter of six inches, within the memory 
of persons still living, measure six, and sometimes even seven 
feet through. For this change in the growth of forest trees 
there are two reasons: the one is, that the great commercial 
value of the pine and the oak have caused the destruction of 
all the best—that is, the tallest and straightest—specimens of 
both ; the other, that the thinning of the woods by the axe of 
the lumberman has allowed the access of light and heat and 
air to trees of humbler worth and lower stature, which have 
survived their more towering brethren. These, consequently, 
have been able to expand their crowns and swell their stems 
to a degree not possible so long as they were overshadowed 
and stifled by the lordly oak and pine. While, therefore, the 
New England forester must search long before he finds a pine 
fit to be the mast 
Of some great ammiral, 
beeches and elms and birches, as sturdy as the mightiest of 
their progenitors, are still no rarity.* 
* The forest trees of the Northern States do not attain to extreme lon¬ 
gevity in the dense woods. Dr. Williams found that none of the huge 
pines, the age of which he ascertained, exceeded three hundred and fifty 
or four hundred years, though he quotes a friend who thought he had 
noticed trees considerably older. The oak lives longer than the pine, and 
the hemlock spruce is perhaps equally long lived. A tree of this latter 
species, cut within my knowledge in a thick wood, counted four hundred and 
eighty-six, or, according to another observer, five hundred annual circles. 
Great luxuriance of animal and vegetable production is not commonly 
accompanied by long duration of the individual. The oldest men are not 
