A river, with its waterfalls and meadows, a lake, a hill, a cliff or individual rocks, a forest, and ancient trees standing singly.

January 3.

The third considerable snow-storm.

The berries which I celebrate appear to have a range -- most of them — very nearly coterminous with what has been called the Algonquin Family of Indians, whose territories are now occupied by the Eastern, Middle, and Northwestern States and the Canadas, and completely surrounded those of the Iroquois, who occupied what is now the State of New York. These were the small fruits of the Algonquin and Iroquois families. The Algonquins appear to have described this kind of fruits generally by words ending in the syllables meenar.

It is true we have in the Northern States a few wild plums and inedible crab-apples, a few palatable grapes and nuts, but I think that our various species of berries are our wild fruits to be compared with the more celebrated ones of the tropics, and that, taking all things into consideration, New England will bear comparison with the West India Islands. I have not heard of any similar amusement there superior to huckleberrying here, the object not being merely to get a shipload of something which you can eat or sell.

Why should the Ornamental Tree Society confine its labors to the highway only? An Englishman laying out his ground does not regard simply the avenues and walks.

Does not the landscape deserve attention? What are the natural features which make a township handsome? A river, with its waterfalls and meadows, a lake, a hill, a cliff or individual rocks, a forest, and ancient trees standing singly. Such things are beautiful; they have a high use which dollars and cents never represent.

If the inhabitants of a town were wise, they would seek to preserve these things, though at a considerable expense; for such things educate far more than any hired teachers or preachers, or any at present recognized system of school education.

I do not think him fit to be the founder of a state or even of a town who does not foresee the use of these things, but legislates chiefly for oxen, as it were.

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; and yet it would be very like the rest of New England if Boxboro were ashamed of that woodland. I have since heard, however, that she is contented to have that forest stand instead of the houses and farms that might supplant [i ], because the land pays a much larger tax to the town now than it would then. I said to myself, if the history of this town is written, the chief stress is probably laid on its parish and there is not a word about this forest in it.

It would be worth the while if in each town there were a committee appointed to see that the beauty of the town received no detriment.

If we have the largest boulder in the county, then it should not belong to an individual, nor be made into door-steps. As in many countries precious metals belong to the crown, so here more precious natural objects of rare beauty should belong to the public. Not only the channel but one or both banks of every river should be a public highway. The only use of a river is not to float on it. 

Think of a mountain-top in the township -- even to the minds of the Indians a sacred place — only accessible through private grounds! a temple, as it were, which you cannot enter except by trespassing and at the risk of letting out or letting in somebody's cattle! in fact the temple itself in this case private property and standing in a man's cow-yard,-for such is commonly the case! 

New Hampshire courts have lately been deciding-as if it was for them to decide whether the top of Mt. Washington belonged to A or to B; and, it being decided in favor of B, as I hear, he went up one winter with the proper officer and took formal possession of it.

But I think that the top of Mt. Washington should not be private property; it should be left unappropriated for modesty and reverence's sake, or if only to suggest that earth has higher uses than we put her to.

I know it is a mere figure of speech to talk about temples nowadays, when men recognize none, and, indeed, associate the word with heathenism.

It is true we as yet take liberties and go across lots, and steal, or "hook," a good many things, but we naturally take fewer and fewer liberties every year, as we meet with more resistance.

In old countries, as England, going across lots is out of the question. You must walk in some beaten path or other, though it may [ be ] a narrow one.

We are tending to the same state of things here, when practically a few will have grounds of their own, but most will have none to walk over but what the few allow them. Thus we behave like oxen in a flower-garden.

The true fruit of Nature can only be plucked with a delicate hand not bribed by any earthly reward, and a fluttering heart. No hired man can help us to gather this crop.

How few ever get beyond feeding, clothing, sheltering, and warming themselves in this world, and begin to treat themselves as human beings, as intellectual and moral beings! Most seem not to see any further, not to see over the ridge-pole of their barns, - - or to be exhausted and accomplish nothing more than a full barn, though it may be accompanied by an empty head.

They venture a little, run some risks, when it is a question of a larger crop of corn or potatoes; but they are commonly timid and count their coppers, when the question is whether their children shall be educated.

He who has the reputation of being the thriftiest farmer and making the best bargains is really the most thrift less and makes the worst.

It is safest to invest in knowledge, for the probability is that you can carry that with you wherever you go.

But most men, it seems to me, do not care for Nature and would sell their share in all her beauty, as long as they may live, for a stated sum — many for a glass of rum.

Thank God, men cannot as yet fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth ! We are safe on that side for the present. 

It is for the very reason that some do not care for those things that we need to continue to protect all from the vandalism of a few.

We cut down the few old oaks which witnessed the transfer of the township from the Indian to the white man, and commence our museum with a cartridge-box taken from a British soldier in 1775! 

He pauses at the end of his four or five thousand dollars, and then only fears that he has not got enough to carry him through, -- that is, merely to pay for what he will eat and wear and burn and for his lodging for the rest of his life. But, pray, what does he stay here for?

Suicide would be cheaper. Indeed, it would be nobler to found some good institution with the money and then cut your throat.

If such is the whole upshot of their living, I think that it would be most profitable for all such to be carried or put through by being discharged from the mouth of a cannon as fast as they attained to years of such discretion.

As boys are sometimes required to show an excuse for being absent from school, so it seems to me that men should show some excuse for being here. Move along; you may come upon the town, sir.

I noticed a week or two ago that one of my white pines, some six feet high with a thick top, was bent under a great burden of very moist snow, almost to the point of breaking, so that an ounce more of weight would surely have broken it. As I was confined to the house by sickness, and the tree had already been four or five days in that position, I despaired of its ever recovering itself; but, greatly to my surprise, when, a few days after, the snow had melted off, I saw the tree almost perfectly upright again.

It is evident that trees will bear to be bent by this cause and at this season much more than by the hand of man. Probably the less harm is done in the first place by the weight being so gradually applied, and perhaps the tree is better able to bear it at this season of the year.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 3, 1861

The berries which I celebrate. See The Whortleberry Family

Thank God, men cannot as yet fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth ! See January 21, 1852 ("This winter they are cutting down our woods more seriously than ever. . . Thank God, they cannot cut down the clouds!"

Far the handsomest thing I saw in Boxboro was its noble oak wood. See 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. Seeing this, I can realize how this country appeared when it was discovered - - a full-grown oak forest stretching uninterrupted for miles, consisting of sturdy trees from one to three and even four feet in diameter, whose interlacing branches form a complete and uninterrupted canopy"); November 16, 1860 ("There being hills, dells, moraines, meadows, swamps, and a fine brook in the midst of all. . . .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.")

If the inhabitants of a town were wise, they would seek to preserve these things. See January 22, 1852 ("Methinks the town should have more supervision and control over its parks than it has. It concerns us all whether these proprietors choose to cut down all the woods this winter or not."); Walking ("A town is saved by the woods and swamps that surround it.”); October 15, 1859 ("Each town should have a park, or rather a primitive forest, of five hundred or a thousand acres, where a stick should never be cut for fuel, a common possession forever, for instruction and recreation.")

But I think that the top of Mt. Washington should not be private property. See Ownership History of the Mount Washington Summit (2018) ("The State [is now] the fee owner of almost all of the Mount Washington Summit.")

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, January 3

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

 "A book, each page written in its own season, 

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2023

A thousand? acres of old oak wood.

November 9. 

November 9, 2020

12 m. – To Inches’ Woods in Boxboro.

This wood is some one and three quarters miles from West Acton, whither we went by railroad.

It is in the east part of Boxboro, on both sides of the Harvard turnpike.

We walked mostly across lots from West Acton to a part of the wood about half a mile north of the turnpike, — and the woods appeared to reach as much further north.

We then walked in the midst of the wood in a southwesterly by west direction, about three quarters of a mile, crossing the turnpike west of the maple swamp and the brook, and thence south by east nearly as much more, — all the way in the woods, and chiefly old oak wood.

The old oak wood, as we saw from the bare hill at the south end, extends a great deal further west and northwest, as well as north, than we went, and must be at least a mile and a half from north to south by a mile to a mile and a quarter  possibly from east to west.

Or there may be a thousand? acres of old oak wood.

The large wood is chiefly oak, and that white oak, though black, red, and scarlet oak are also common.

White pine is in considerable quantity, and large pitch pine is scattered here and there, and saw some chestnut at the south end.

Saw no hem lock or birch to speak of.

Beginning at the north end of our walk, the trees which I measured were (all at three feet from ground except when otherwise stated) : a black oak, ten feet [ in ] circumference, trunk tall and of regular form ; scarlet oak, seven feet three inches, by Guggins Brook ; white oak, eight feet ; white oak, ten feet, forks at ten feet ; white oak, fifteen feet ( at two and a half feet, bulging very much near ground ; trunk of a pyramidal form ; first branch at sixteen feet ; this just north of turnpike and near Guggins Brook ) ; white oak, nine feet four inches ( divides to two at five feet ) ; white oak, nine feet six inches ( divides to two at five feet ) ; red oak, eight feet ( south of road ) ; white pine, nine feet ; a scarlet or red oak stump cut, twenty and a half inches [ in ] diameter, one hundred and sixty rings.

I was pleased to find that the largest of the white oaks, growing thus in a dense wood, often with a pine or other tree within two or three feet, were of pasture oak size and even form, the largest commonly branching low.

Very many divide to two trunks at four or five feet only from the ground.

You see some white oaks and even some others in the midst of the wood nearly as spreading as in open land.

Looking from the high bare hill at the south end, the limits of the old oak wood ( so far as we could overlook it ) were very distinct, its tops being a mass of gray brush, — contorted and intertwisted twigs and boughs, — while the younger oak wood around it, or bounding it, though still of respectable size, was still densely clothed with the reddish - brown leaves.

This famous oak lot — like Blood’s and Wetherbee’s – is a place of resort for those who hunt the gray squirrel.

They have their leafy nests in the oak-tops.

It is an endless maze of gray oak trunks and boughs stretching far around.

The great mass of individual trunks which you stand near is very impressive.

Many sturdy trunks (they commonly stand a little aslant) are remarkably straight and round, and have so much regularity in their roughness as to suggest smooth rougher and darker bark than Wetherbee’s and Blood’s, though often betraying the same tendency to smoothness, as if a rough layer had been stripped off near the ground.

I noticed that a great many trunks (the bark) had been gnawed near the ground, — different kinds of oak and chestnut, — perhaps by squirrels.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, November 9, 1860

At least a mile and a half from north to south by a mile to a mile and a quarter possibly from east to west. Or there may be a thousand? acres of old oak wood.  See 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. Seeing this, I can realize how this country appeared when it was discovered - a full-grown oak forest stretching uninterrupted for miles, consisting of sturdy trees from one to three and even four feet in diameter, whose interlacing branches form a complete and uninterrupted canopy")

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.")

Inches Wood

November 10.

How little there is on an ordinary map! How little, I mean, that concerns the walker and the lover of nature.

Between those lines indicating roads is a plain blank space in the form of a square or triangle or polygon or segment of a circle, and there is naught to distinguish this from an other area of similar size and form. Yet the one,may be covered, in fact, with a primitive oak wood, like that of Boxboro, waving and creaking in the wind, such as may make the reputation of a county, while the other is a stretching plain with scarcely a tree on it.

The waving woods, the dells and glades and green banks and smiling fields, the huge boulders, etc., etc., are not on the map, nor to be inferred from the map.

How little we insist on truly grand and beautiful natural features! How many have ever heard of the Boxboro oak woods? How many have ever explored them?

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.

Seeing this, I can realize how this country appeared when it was discovered - a full-grown oak forest stretching uninterrupted for miles, consisting of sturdy trees from one to three and even four feet in diameter, whose interlacing branches form a complete and uninterrupted canopy. Such were the oak woods which the Indian threaded hereabouts.

Such a wood must have a peculiar fauna to some extent. Many trunks old and hollow, in which wild beasts den. Hawks nesting in the dense tops, and deer glancing between the trunks. Warblers must pass through it in the spring, which we do not see here.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 10, 1860

How little we insist on truly grand and beautiful natural features! How many have ever heard of the Boxboro oak woods? How many have ever explored them? See 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 ("Inches’ Woods in Boxboro. This wood is some one and three quarters miles from West Acton, .. . . in the east part of Boxboro, on both sides of the Harvard turnpike."); 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.")

Primitive forest

October 23.

More or less rain to-day and yesterday.

Anthony Wright tells me that he cut a pitch pine on Damon's land between the Peter Haynes road and his old farm, about '41, in which he counted two hundred and seventeen rings, which was therefore older than Concord, and one of the primitive forest.

He tells me of a noted large and so-called primitive wood, Inches Wood, between the Harvard turnpike and Stow, sometimes called Stow Woods.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  October 23, 1860

He tells me of a noted large and so-called primitive wood, Inches Wood. See ;November 9, 1860 ("Inches’ Woods in Boxboro. This wood is some one and three quarters miles from West Acton, .. . . in the east part of Boxboro, on both sides of the Harvard turnpike.");  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.Seeing this, I can realize how this country appeared when it was discovered - a full-grown oak forest stretching uninterrupted for miles, consisting of sturdy trees from one to three and even four feet in diameter, whose interlacing branches form a complete and uninterrupted canopy")