FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 163 
“I wish I knew how old this tree is,” said Fred. 
“It is very hard to tell how old a tree is while it is 
standing,” answered Uncle Jack. “But after it is cut 
down, you can tell. You can tell, also, which years had 
much rain and which years had very little.” 
“Do show us how you can tell, Uncle Jack,” begged 
Bess. 
“Let us go to that stump yonder and see if we can 
read the age of that tree when it was cut down,” said 
Uncle Jack. 
They went over to the stump. 
“See these rings in the wood,” said Uncle Jack. “It took 
the tree a whole year to make one of these rings. Each 
year the tree puts on a new layer of wood just under 
the bark. That layer is the ring you see. Now count 
the rings. Then we shall know how old the tree was.” 
They tried to count the rings, but it was a little hard 
to do, because some of the rings were so close together. 
They counted twenty rings. 
“That means that the tree was twenty years old,” said 
Buddy. “But, Uncle Jack, why are some of the rings 
so wide and some of them so narrow and close together?” 
“When the ground was very dry, the tree did not grow 
so much and this layer of new wood which you see is 
not so thick,” replied Uncle Jack. “Here is a wide ring. 
There was much rain that year and the tree grew all of 
that new wood. The next year was very dry. The tree 
grew only this little narrow belt of wood.” 
“You can look at the end of a branch that has been 
cut off and tell the age of the branch,” continued Uncle 
