class="txt">Sugar-loaf Mountain, on the Seboois River

225 View of Lily Bay, on Moose-head Lake 228 Skowhegan Falls, on the Kennebeck 231 Rumford Falls, on the Androscoggin 235 View of Umbagog Lake—Source of the Androscoggin 237 Frye's Falls, on a Tributary of Ellis River 238 Rumford Bridge, Androscoggin River 239 Aroostook Falls 250

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FOREST LIFE AND FOREST TREES.

PART I.

 

CHAPTER I.

Trees, how regarded by Lumbermen.‌—‌Cedars of Lebanon.‌—‌Oldest Tree on Record.‌—‌Napoleon's Regard for it.‌—‌Dimensions.‌—‌Durability of the Cedar, how accounted for.‌—‌The Oak.‌—‌Religious Veneration in which it was held by the Druids.‌—‌The Uses to which their Shade was appropriated.‌—‌Curious Valuation of Oak Forests by the Ancient Saxons.‌—‌The Number of Species.‌—‌Its Value.‌—‌Remarkable old Oak in Brighton.‌—‌Charter Oak.‌—‌Button-wood Tree.‌—‌Remarkable Rapidity of its Growth.‌—‌Remarkable Size of one measured by Washington.‌—‌by Michaux.‌—‌Disease in 1842, '43, and '44.‌—‌The Oriental Plane-tree. ‌—‌Great Favorite with the Ancients.‌—‌Cimon's Effort to gratify the Athenians.‌—‌Pliny's Account of its Transportation.‌—‌The Privilege of its Shade a Tax.‌—‌Used as an Ornament.‌—‌Nourished with Wine.‌—‌ Hortensius and Cicero.‌—‌Pliny's curious Account of one of remarkable Size.

Lumbermen are accustomed to classify and rate forest trees by the lower, middle, and higher grades, just as animals are classified, from the muscle, through the intermediate grades, up to man, the crowning master-piece of the Creator's skill. But while man is universally recognized as first in the scale of animated nature, there is less uniformity of sentiment in respect to trees, as to which is entitled to hold the first rank in the vegetable kingdom. In the days of King David and Solomon, the noble Cedars of Lebanon held the pre-eminence, and were celebrated in verse as emblems of beauty, grandeur, and especially of durability; but "with the moderns the Cedar is emblematical of sadness and mourning":

"Perhaps the oldest tree on record is the Cypress of Somma, in Lombardy. It is supposed to have been planted in the year of the birth of Christ, and on that account is looked upon with reverence by the inhabitants; but an ancient chronicle at Milan is said to prove that it was a tree in the time of Julius Cæsar, B.C. 42. It is one hundred and twenty-three feet high, and twenty-three feet in circumference at one foot from the ground. Napoleon, when laying down the plan for his great road over the Simplon, diverged from a straight line to avoid injuring this tree."[1]

"The Cedar was styled the glory of Lebanon. The Temple of Solomon and that of Diana at Ephesus were built of this wood. The number of these trees is now greatly diminished. They were often of vast size, sometimes girting thirty-six feet, perfectly sound, with a lofty height, whose spreading branches extended one hundred and ten feet." The durability of the Cedar is said to be attributable to two qualities: "1st, the bitterness of the wood, which protects it from the depredations of worms; and, 2dly, its resin, which preserves it from the injuries of the weather."

To the Oak some assign the first rank. It is celebrated in the East, and by many of the ancients was regarded with religious veneration. In the West, and by moderns, it is employed more as an emblem of the strength, compactness, and durability of the state.

"The religious veneration paid to this tree by the original natives of Britain, in the time of the Druids, is well known to every reader of British history." The patriarch Abraham resided under an Oak, or a grove of Oaks; and it is believed that he planted a grove of this tree. "In fact, since, in hot countries, nothing is more desirable than shade—nothing more refreshing than the shade of a tree—we may easily suppose the inhabitants would resort for such enjoyment to

Oaks, and groves of Oaks, were esteemed proper places for religious services; so that while the Methodist denomination may not claim originality in holding grove or camp-meetings, they may, at least, plead the usages of antiquity in their defense. Altars were set up under them; affairs of state were discussed and ratified under their ample shade.

"Abimelech was made king under an Oak." "Absalom rode upon a mule which went under the thick boughs of a great Oak, and his head caught hold of the Oak, and he was taken up between the heaven and the earth," and, while there suspended, was slain by Joab and his armor-bearers.

"In England, whose Oak forests are now one of the sources of national wealth and naval supremacy, the tree was once prized only for the acorns, which were the chief support of those large herds of swine whose flesh formed so considerable a part of the food of the Saxons. Woods of old, says Burnett, were valued according to the number of hogs they could fatten; and so rigidly were the forest lands surveyed, that, in ancient records, such as the Doomsday-book, woods are mentioned of a single hog. The right of feeding hogs in woods, called pannage, formed, some centuries ago, one of the most valuable kinds of property. With this right monasteries were endowed, and it often constituted the dowry of the daughters of the Saxon kings."[2]

Of the Oak some naturalists have enumerated twenty-four species. The wood of the White Oak is distinguished by three properties, which give to it its great value: hardness, toughness, and durability. The great variety of purposes to which it is appropriated shows it to be a tree of great value. For