The growth of very old trees is feebler at last than when in middle age.

November 17

P. M .-- To Blood's woods. 

November 17, 2018

Sawed off a branch of creeping juniper two inches diameter with fifteen rings.

On one square of nine rods in Blood's wood, which seemed more dense than the average, are thirteen sizable trees. This would give about two hundred and thirty to an acre, but probably there are not more than one hundred and eighty to an acre, take the wood through.

This is but little more than one to a square rod. Yet this is a quite dense wood.

That very solid white oak stump recently sawed in this wood was evidently a seedling, the growth was so extremely slow at first. If I found the case to be the same with the other oaks here, I should feel sure that these were all seedlings and therefore had been preceded by pines or at least some dense evergreens, or possibly birches.

When I find a dense oak wood, whether sprouts or seedlings, I affirm that evergreens once stood [there] and, if man does not prevent, will grow again. This I must believe until I find a dense oak wood planted under itself or in open land.

Minot Pratt's elm is sixteen and a quarter feet circumference at three feet.

These tawny-white oaks are thus by their color and character the lions among trees, or rather, not to compare them with a foreign animal, they are the cougars or panthers – the American lions — among the trees, for nearly such is that of the cougar which walks beneath and amid or springs upon them. There is plainly this harmony between the color of our chief wild beast of the cat kind and our chief tree.

How they do things in West Acton.

As we were walking through West Acton the other afternoon, a few rods only west of the centre, on the main road, the Harvard turnpike, we saw a rock larger than a man could lift, lying in the road, exactly in the wheel-track, and were puzzled to tell how it came there, but supposed it had slipped off a drag, -- yet we noticed that it was peculiarly black.

Returning the same way in the twilight, when we had got within four or five rods of this very spot, looking up, we saw a man in the field, three or four rods on one side of that spot, running off as fast as he could.

By the time he had got out of sight over the hill it occurred to us that he was blasting rocks and had just touched one off; so, at the eleventh hour, we turned about and ran the other way, and when we had gone a few rods, off went two blasts, but fortunately none of the rocks struck us. Some time after we passed we saw the men returning. They looked out for themselves, but for nobody else.

This is the way they do things in West Acton. We now understood that the big stone was blackened by powder.

Silas Hosmer tells me how [they]sold the Heywood lot between the railroad and Fair Haven. They lotted it off in triangles, and, carrying plenty of liquor, they first treated all round, and then proceeded to sell at auction, but the purchasers, excited with liquor, were not aware when the stakes were pointed out that the lots were not as broad in the rear as in front, and the wood standing cost them as much as it should have done delivered at the door.

I frequently see the heads of teasel, called fuller's thistle, floating on our river, having come from factories above, and thus the factories which use it may distribute its seeds by means of the streams which turn their machinery, from one to another. The one who first cultivated the teasel extensively in this town is said to have obtained the seed when it was not to be purchased — the culture being monopolized — by sweeping a wagon which he had loaned to a teasel-raiser.

The growth of very old trees, as appears by calculating the bulk of wood formed, is feebler at last than when in middle age, or say in pitch pine at one hundred and sixty than at forty or fifty, especially when you consider the increased number of leaves, and this, together with the fact that old stumps send up no shoots, shows that trees are not indefinitely long-lived.

I have a section of a chestnut sprout — and not at all a rank one which has 6 rings in the first inch, or 4 rings in five eighths of an inch, but a section of a chestnut seedling has 10 rings in five eighths of an inch.

A section of a white oak sprout, far from rank, has 4 rings in first five eighths of an inch; of a seedling ditto, 16 or 17 in first five eighths of an inch; of a seed ling ditto, 8 in first five eighths of an inch; of a very slow-grown sprout, 6 – in first five eighths of an inch.

Or in the white oaks the proportion is as five to twelve.

The first seedling oak has the rough and tawny light brown bark of an old tree, while the first sprout is quite smooth-barked.

A seedling white birch has 10 rings in first seven eighths of an inch. A sprout white birch has 5 rings in first seven eighths of an inch.
The first has the white bark of an old tree; the second, a smooth and reddish bark.

When a stump is sound to the pith I can commonly tell whether it was a seedling or a sprout by the rapidity of the growth at first. A seedling, it is true, may have died down many times till it is fifteen or twenty years old, and so at last send up a more vigorous shoot than at first, but generally the difference is very marked.

 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 17, 1860

Sawed off a branch of creeping juniper. See September 4, 1853 ("The creeping juniper berries are now a hoary green but full-grown."); October 19, 1859 ("The dark-blue, or ripe, creeping juniper berries are chiefly on the lower part of the branches,")

To Blood's woods. See November 5, 1860 ("Blood's oak lot may contain about a dozen acres. It consists of red, black, white, and swamp white oaks, and a very little maple. This is quite a dense wood-lot, . . . a hundred to a hundred and sixty years old.")

These tawny-white oaks are thus by their color and character the lions among trees. See November 16, 1860 ("There is . . .a difference between most of the white oaks within Blood's wood and the pasture oaks without, — the former having a very finely divided and comparatively soft tawnyish bark, and the latter a very coarse rugged and dark - colored bark. . . . White oaks within a wood commonly, at Wetherbee's and Blood's woods, have lost the outside rough and rugged bark near the base, like a jacket or vest cast off, revealing that peculiar smooth tawny - white inner garment or shirt.")

The one who first cultivated the teasel extensively in this town is said to have obtained the seed by sweeping a wagon which he had loaned to a teasel-raiser. See September 16, 1856 ("William Monroe is said to have been the first who raised teasels about here. He was very sly about it, and fearful lest he should have competitors. At length he lent his wagon to a neighbor, who discovered some teasel seed on the bottom, which he carefully saved and planted, and so competed with Monroe.")

To Inches Woods.

November 16.

This and yesterday Indian-summer days. 

November 16, 2019

P. M. – To Inches Woods .

Walked over these woods again, — first from Harvard turnpike at where Guggins Brook leaves it, which is the east edge of the old wood, due north along near the edge of the wood, and at last more northwest along edge to the cross - road, a strong mile.

I observe that the black, red, and scarlet oaks are generally much more straight and perpendicular than the white, and not branched below.

The white oak is much oftener branched below and is more irregular, curved or knobby.

The first large erect black oak measured on the 9th was by the path at foot of hill southeast of pigeon - place.

Another, more north, is (all at three feet when not otherwise stated) ten and a half in circumference.

There is not only a difference between most of the white oaks within Blood's wood and the pasture oaks without, — the former having a very finely divided and comparatively soft tawnyish bark, and the latter a very coarse rugged and dark - colored bark, — but there is here a similar difference within this wood; i. e., some of the white oaks have a hard, rugged bark, in very regular oblong squares or checkers(an agreeably regular roughness like a coat of mail), while others have a comparatively finely divided and soft bark.

It happens oftenest here, I think, that the very largest white oaks have the most horizontal branches and branch nearest the ground, which would at first suggest that these trees were a different variety from the more upright and rather smaller ones, but it may be that these are older, and for that reason had more light and room and so temptation to spread when young.

Northwesterly from pigeon - place(near base of hill), - A white oak 64 in circumference 819 611 The last one grows close against a rock(some three feet high), and it has grown over the top and sides of this rock to the breadth of twelve and eighteen inches in a thin, close - fitting, saddle - like manner, very remark able and showing great vigor in the tree.

Here, too, coming to water, I see the swamp white oak rising out of it, elm - like in its bark and trunk.

Red maples also appear here with them.

It is interesting to see thus how surely the character of the ground determines the growth.

It is evident that in a wood that has been let alone for the longest period the greatest regularity and harmony in the disposition of the trees will be observed, while in our ordinary woods man has often interfered and favored the growth of other kinds than are best fitted to grow there naturally.

To some, which he does not want, he allows no place at all.

Hickories occasionally occur, - sometimes scaly barked, if not shagbarks, -- also black birch and a few little sugar maples.

Still going north, a white pine nine feet circumference.

The wood at the extreme north end(along the road) is considerably smaller.

After proceeding west along the road, we next went west by south through a maple and yellow birch swamp, in which a black oak eight feet and four twelfths [ in ] circumference, a red maple six feet and a half, a black birch seven feet, a black birch eight feet.

And in the extreme northwesterly part of the wood, close to the road, are many large chestnuts, one eleven and three quarters feet circumference with many great knobs or excrescences, another twelve and seven twelfths.

We next walked across the open land by the road to the high hill northeast of Boxboro Centre.

In this neighborhood are many very large chestnuts, of course related to the chestnut wood just named.

1st, along this road just over the north wall, beyond a new house, one 13/1 feet in circumference; 2d, 16, a few rods more west by the wall; then, perhaps fifty or sixty rods more west and maybe eight or ten rods north from the road, along a wall, the 3d, 15 %; and then, near the road, southwest from this, the 4th, 15-40; and some rods further north, toward hill and house of O. and J. Wetherbee, the 5th, 1372; then northeast, in lower ground(?), the 6th, 16 feet, at ground 213; then, near base of hill, beyond house, the 7th, 164 at two feet from ground; next, some rods west of the hill, the 8th, 1. at three feet, at ground 231; and then, a consider able distance north and further down the hill, the 9th, 131.(There [ were ] also four other good - sized chestnuts on this hillside, with the last three.) Or these nine trees averaged about 157 feet in circumference.

The 3d tree had a limb four or five feet from the ground, which extended horizontally for a rod toward the south, declining a little toward the earth, and this was nine feet in circumference about eighteen inches from the tree.

The 7th had a large limb broken off at one foot above the ground on the side, whose stump prevented measuring at the ordinary height.

As I remember, the 8th was the finest tree.

These nine(or thirteen) trees are evidently the relics of one chestnut wood of which a part remains and makes the northwest part of Inches Wood, and the trees are all within about a quarter of a mile southeast and north west, the first two being by themselves at the southeast.

The chestnut is remarkable for branching low, occasionally so low that you cannot pass under the lower limb.

In several instances a large limb had fallen out on one side.

Commonly, you see great rugged strips of bark, like straps or iron clamps made to bind the tree together, three or four inches wide and as many feet long, running more or less diagonally across the trunk and suggesting a very twisted grain, while the grain of the recent bark beneath them may be perpendicular.

Perhaps this may be owing to old portions of the bark which still adhere, being wrenched aside by the unequal growth of Frank Brown tells me of a chestnut in his neighbor hood nineteen feet and eight(?) inches in circumference at three feet.

White oaks within a wood commonly, at Wetherbee's and Blood's woods, have lost the outside rough and rugged bark near the base, like a jacket or vest cast off, revealing that peculiar smooth tawny - white inner garment or shirt.

Probably the moisture and shade of a wood softens the bark and causes it to scale off.

Apparently outside trees do not lose this outer bark, but it becomes far more rugged and dark exposed to the light and air, forming a strong coat of mail such as they need.

Most of the white oaks in Inches Wood are of a slight ashy tinge and have a rather loose, scaly bark, but the larger, losing this below, become tawny - white.

Having returned into Inches Wood, not far west of the meadow(which is west of the brook), at the angle made by the open land, a black oak stump recently cut, about one foot high and twenty - one inches in diameter, had only one hundred and six rings.

A white oak only nine inches in diameter near by had eighty rings.

I suspect that the smaller white oaks are much older comparatively(with the large) than their size would indicate, as well as sounder and harder wood.

A white oak at three feet, six and one half in circumference.

A black oak had been recently cut into at the west base of Pigeon Hill, and I counted about eighty five rings in the outside three inches.

The tree(wood only) was some twenty - three inches in diameter.

Looking at this wood from the Boxboro hill, the higher land, forming a ridge from north to south.

Young white pines have very generally come in(a good many being twenty feet high or more), though in some places much more abundantly than in others, all over this oak wood, though not high enough to be seen at a distance or from hills(except the first - named larger trees); but though there are very many large pitch pines in this wood, especially on the hills or moraines, young pitch pines are scarcely to be seen.

I saw some only in a dell on the south side the turnpike.

If these oaks were cut off with care, there would very soon be a dense white pine wood there.

The white pines are not now densely planted, except in some more open places, but come up stragglingly every two or three rods.

The natural succession is rapidly going on here, and as fast as an oak falls, its place is supplied by a pine or two.

I have no doubt that, if entirely let alone, this which is now an oak wood would have become a white pine wood.

Measured on the map, this old woodland is fully a mile and a half long from north to south one mile being north [ of ] the turnpike — and will average half a mile from east to west.

Its extreme width, measuring due east and west, is from Guggins Brook on the turn pike to the first church.

(It runs considerably further southeast, however, on to the high hill.)

There is a considerable tract on the small road south [ of ] the turn pike covered with second growth.

There is, therefore, some four hundred acres of this old wood.

There is a very little beech and hemlock and yellow birch in this wood.

Many large black birches at the northwest end.

Chestnuts at the northwest and south east ends.

The bark of the oaks is very frequently gnawed near the base by a squirrel or other animal.

Guggins Brook unites with Heather Meadow Brook, and then with Fort Pond Brook just this side of West Acton, and thus the water of this old oak wood comes into the Assabet and flows by our North Bridge.

The seeds of whatever trees water will transport, provided they grow there, may thus be planted along our river.

I crossed the brook in the midst of the wood where there was no path, but four or five large stones had evidently been placed by man at convenient intervals for stepping - stones, and possibly this was an old Indian trail.

You occasionally see a massive old oak prostrate and decaying, rapidly sinking into the earth, and its place is evidently supplied by a pine rather than an oak.

There is now remarkably little life to be seen there.

In my two walks I saw only one squirrel and a chickadee.

Not a hawk or a jay.

Yet at the base of very many oaks were acorn - shells left by the squirrels.

In a perfectly round hole made by a woodpecker in a small dead oak five feet from the ground, were three good white oak acorns placed In the midst of the wood, west of the brook, is a natural meadow, — i. e. in a natural state, strip without trees, yet not very wet.

Evidently swamp white oaks and maples might grow there.

The greater part of this wood is strewn with large rocks, more or less flat or table - like, very handsomely clothed with moss finely diversified, there being hills, dells, moraines, meadows, swamps, and a fine brook in the midst of all.

Some parts are very thickly strewn with rocks(as at the northwest), others quite free from them.

Nowhere any monotony.

It is very pleasant, as you walk in the shade below, to see the cheerful sunlight reflected from the maze of oak boughs above.

They would be a fine sight after one of those sticking snows in the winter.

On the north end, also, the first evidence we had that we were coming out of the wood — approaching its border — was the crowing of a cock.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 16, 1860

To Inches Woods. October 23, 1860 ("[Anthony Wright] tells me of a noted large and so-called primitive wood, Inches Wood, between the Harvard turnpike and Stow, sometimes called Stow Woods"); November 9, 1860 ("There may be a thousand? acres of old oak wood.); November 10, 1860 ("I have lived so long in this neighborhood and but just heard of this noble forest, - probably as fine an oak wood as there is in New England, only eight miles west of me"); January 3, 1861 ("Far the handsomest thing I saw in Boxboro was its noble oak wood. I doubt if there is a finer one in Massachusetts. Let her keep it a century longer, and men will make pilgrimages to it from all parts of the country.")

To Blood's oak lot.

November 5.

Blood's oak lot may contain about a dozen acres. It consists of red, black, white, and swamp white oaks, and a very little maple.  This is quite a dense wood-lot, even without considering the size of the trees, and  I am  surprised to see how much spread there is to the tops of the trees in it, especially to the white oaks.

The more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core.  I think that the same is true of human beings.  We do not wish to see children precocious, making great strides in their early years like sprouts, producing a soft and perishable timber, but better if they expand slowly at first, as if contending with difficulties, and so are solidified and perfected.

Such trees continue to expand with nearly equal rapidity to an extreme old age. This  wood is  a hundred to a hundred and sixty years old.

I am struck by the orderly arrangement of the trees, as if each knew its own place. As if in the natural state of things, when sufficient time is given, trees will be found occupying the places most suitable to each, but when they are interfered with some are prompted to grow where they do not belong and a certain degree of confusion is produced. That is, our forest generally is in a transition state to a settled and normal condition.

Many young white pines — the largest twenty years old — are distributed through this wood, and I have no doubt that if let alone this would in a hundred years look more like a pine wood than an oak one  Hence we see that the white pine may introduce itself into a primitive oak wood of average density.

The only sounds  I hear are the notes of the jays, evidently attracted by the acorns, and the only animal I see is  a red squirrel, while there are the nests of several gray squirrels in the trees.

Last evening, the weather being cooler, there was an arch of northern lights in the north, with some redness. Thus our winter is heralded.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 5, 1860

This wood is a hundred to a hundred and sixty years old. See October 20, 1860 ("I examine Ebby Hubbard's old oak and pine wood. The trees may be a hundred years old.”); November 2, 1860 ("Wetherbee's oak wood ... The trees would average probably between a hundred and fifty and two hundred years. Such a wood has got to be very rare in this neighborhood.”); ( November 10, 1860 ("Inches Wood . . .as fine an oak wood as there is in New England.").

The more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core. I think that the same is true of human beings. See October 29, 1860 ("It is with men as with trees; you must grow slowly to last long.)

Northern lights. See September 7, 1851 ("I see the northern lights over my shoulder, to remind me of the Esquimaux and that they are still my contemporaries on this globe, that they too are taking their walks on another part of the planet, in pursuit 476of seals, perchance . . . The northern lights now, as I descend from the Conantum house, have become a crescent of light crowned with short, shooting flames,—or the shadows of flames, for sometimes they are dark as well as white. . . .Now the fire in the north increases wonderfully, not shooting up so much as creeping along, like a fire on the mountains of the north seen afar in the night. The Hyperborean gods are burning brush, and it spread, and all the hoes in heaven couldn’t stop it. It spread from west to east over the crescent hill. Like a vast fiery worm it lay across the northern sky, broken into many pieces; and each piece, with rainbow colors skirting it, strove to advance itself toward the east, worm-like, on its own annular muscles. It has spread into their choicest wood-lots. Now it shoots up like a single solitary watch-fire or burning bush, or where it ran up a pine tree like powder, and still it continues to gleam here and there like a fat stump in the burning, and is reflected in the water. And now I see the gods by great exertions have got it under, and the stars have come out without fear, in peace."); February 19, 1852 ("A fine display of the northern lights after 10 p. m., flashing up from all parts of the horizon to the zenith, where there was a kind of core formed, stretching south southeast [and] north-northwest, surrounded by what looked like a permanent white cloud, which, however, was very variable in its form. The light flashes or trembles upward, as if it were the light of the sun reflected from a frozen mist which undulated in the wind in the upper atmosphere."); April 22, 1852 ("At 10 P. M. the northern lights are flashing, like some grain sown broadcast in the sky."); May 10, 1852 ("There is an aurora borealis to-night."); May 19, 1852 ("Lightning here this evening and an aurora in form of a segment of a circle."); June 16, 1852 ("There are northern lights, shooting high up withal."); July 12, 1852 ("As I sit on the river-bank beyond the ash tree there is an aurora, a low arc of a circle, in the north. The twilight ends to-night apparently about a quarter before ten. There is no moon."); March 13, 1855 ("Northern lights last night. Rainbow in east this morning."); January 28, 1858 ("Coming through the village at 11 P.M., the sky is completely overcast, and the (perhaps thin) clouds are very distinctly pink or reddish, somewhat as if reflecting a distant fire, but this phenomenon is universal all round and overhead. I suspect there is a red aurora borealis behind."); August 29, 1859 ("There was a remarkable red aurora all over the sky last night."). See also Wikipedia (Solar Cycle 10 beginning in December 1855 and the Solar storm ( Carrington Event.) of September 1–2, 1859) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Northern Lights