Young hickory mystery

December 3.

The hickory that was blown down by the wall has been cut up into lengths. The end of one is sixteen inches in diameter and has I12 rings distinct, the first 50 within five and three quarters inches. The bark is one inch thick.

Under and about the hickory that stands near the white oak (under the north side of the hill), there are many small hickories two to four feet high amid the birches and pines. Yet, I find no young hickories springing up on the open hillside.  If they do so elsewhere, why should they not here, where nuts are abundant?

I am inclined to think now that both oaks and hickories are occasionally planted in open land a rod or two or more beyond the edge of a pine or other wood, but that the hickory roots are more persistent under these circumstances and hence oftener succeed there. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 3, 1860

I find no young hickories springing up on the open hillside. See December 2, 1860 ("I do not think that a single hickory has been planted in either of these places for some years at least. “); December 1, 1860 (“What is most remarkable is that they should be planted so often in open land, on a bare hillside, where oaks rarely are.”)