302 
AMERICAN FORESTS. 
true that public property is not sufficiently respected in the 
United States ; and it is also true that, within the memory of 
almost every man of mature age, timber was of so little value 
in that country, that the owners of private woodlands sub¬ 
mitted, almost without complaint, to what would be regarded 
elsewhere as very aggravated trespasses upon them.* Under 
* According to the maxims of English jurisprudence, the common law 
consists of general customs so long established that “ the memory of man 
runneth not to the contrary.” In other words, long custom makes law 
In new countries, the change of circumstances creates new customs, and, 
in time, new law, without the aid of legislation. Had the American colo¬ 
nists observed a more sparing economy in the treatment of their woods, a 
new code of customary forest law would have sprung up and acquired the 
force of a statute. Popular habit was fast elaborating the fundamental 
principles of such a code, when the rapid increase in the value of timber, 
in consequence of the reckless devastation of the woodlands, made it the 
interest of the proprietors to interfere with this incipient system of forest 
jurisprudence, and appeal to the rules of English law for the protection 
of their woods. The courts have sustained these appeals, and forest prop¬ 
erty is now legally as inviolable as any other, though common opinion 
still combats the course of judicial decision on such questions. 
In the United States, swarms of honey bees, on leaving the parent 
hive, often take up their quarters in hollow trees in the neighboring 
woods. By the early customs of New England, the finder of a u bee tree” 
on the land of another owner was regarded as entitled to the honey by 
right of discovery ; and as a necessary incident of that right, he might cut 
the tree, at the proper season, without asking permission of the proprietor 
of the soil. The quantity of “ wild honey ” in a tree was often large, and 
“ bee hunting ” was so profitable that it became almost a regular pro¬ 
fession. The “ bee hunter ” sallied forth with a small box containing 
honey and a little vermilion. The bees which were attracted by the 
honey marked themselves with the vermilion, and hence were more 
readily followed in their homeward flight, and recognized when they re¬ 
turned a second time for booty. When loaded with spoil, this insect re¬ 
turns to his hive by the shortest route, and hence a straight line is popu¬ 
larly called in America a “ bee line.” By such a line, the hunter followed 
the bees to their sylvan hive, marked the tree with his initials, and re¬ 
turned to secure his prize in the autumn. When the right of the “ bee 
hunter ” was at last disputed by the land proprietors, it was with difficulty 
that judgments could be obtained, in inferior courts, in favor of the latter, 
and it was only after repeated decisions of the higher legal tribunals that 
the superior right of the owner of the soil was at last acquiesced in. 
