Among the Trees at Elmridge Part 22

"'A body of wood-cutters unite to form what is called a "lumbering-party," and they are in the employ of a master-lumberman, who pays them wages and finds them in provisions. The provisions are obtained on credit and under promise of payment when the timber has been cut down and sold. If the timber meets with any accident in its pa.s.sage down the river, the master-lumberman cannot make good the loss, and the shopkeeper loses his money.

"'When the lumbering-party are ready to start, they take with them a supply of necessaries, and also what tools they will require, and proceed up the river to the heart of the forest. When they reach a suitable spot where the giant trees which are to serve for masts grow thick and dark, they get all their supplies on sh.o.r.e--their axes, their cooking-utensils and the casks of mola.s.ses'--and too often of whisky or rum, too, I am sorry to say--'that will be used lavishly. The mola.s.ses is used instead of sugar to sweeten the great draughts of tea--made, not from the product of China, but from the tops of the hemlock.

"'The first thing to be done is to build some kind of shelter, for they must remain in the forest until spring, and the cold of those Northern winters is terrible. Their cabin--for it cannot be called by any better name--is built of logs of wood cut down on purpose and put together as rudely as possible. It is only five feet high, and the roof is covered with boards. There is a great blazing fire kept up day and night, for the frost is intense, and the provisions have to be kept in a deep place made in the ground under the cabin. The smoke of the fire goes out through a hole in the roof, and the floor is strewn with branches of fir, the only couch the poor hardworking lumberers have to rest upon.

When night comes, they turn into the cabin to sleep, and lie with their feet to the fire. If a man chances to awaken, he instantly jumps up and throws fresh logs on the fire; for it is of the utmost importance not to let it go out. One of the men is the cook for the whole party, and his duty is to have breakfast ready before it is light in the morning. He prepares a meal of boiled meat and the hemlock tea sweetened with mola.s.ses, and the rest of the party partake heartily of both, and in some camps also of rum, under the mistaken notion that it helps them to bear the severe toil. When breakfast is over, they divide into several gangs. One gang cuts down the trees, another saws them in pieces, and the third gang is occupied in conveying them, by means of oxen, to the bank of the nearest stream, which is now frozen over.

"'It is a hard winter for the lumbermen. The snow covers the ground until the middle of May, and the frost is often intense. But they toil through it, felling, sawing and conveying until a quant.i.ty of trees have been laid prostrate and made available for the market. Then, at last, the weather changes; the snow begins to melt and the streams and rills are set at liberty. The rivers flow briskly on and are much swollen with the melting snow, and the men say that the freshets have come down.

"'Hard as their toil has been, the most difficult and fatiguing has yet to be encountered. The timber is collected on the banks of the river, and has now to be thrown into the water and made into rafts, so that it can be floated down to the nearest market-town. The water, filled with melting snow, is deadly cold and can scarcely be endured, but the men are in it from morning till night constructing the rafts, which are put together as simply as possible, and the smallest outlay made to suffice.

The rafts are of different sizes, according to the breadth of the stream; and when all is ready, they are launched, and the convoy fairly sets out on its voyage.

"'The great ugly ma.s.ses of floating timber move slowly along under the care of a pilot, and the lumberers ride upon the rafts, often without shelter or protection from the weather. They guide themselves by long and powerful poles fixed on pivots, and which act as rudders. As they journey down the stream they sing and shout and make the utmost noise and riot. If there comes a storm or a change of weather, the pilot steers his convoy into some safe creek for the night, and secures it as best he can.

"'Thus by degrees the raft reaches the place of destination, occasionally with some loss and damage to the timber. In this case the master-lumberer bears the loss, and is obliged to refund the expenses incurred as best he can. At any rate, the men are now paid off, and set out on foot for their homes.'"

Malcolm was particularly delighted with this narrative of stirring activity, and even the little girls seemed very much interested in it.

They were so sorry for the poor lumbermen who had such dreary winters off there in the Northern woods, and Clara wondered if they couldn't have warm comforters and mittens.

"They probably have those things when they go into camp," said Miss Harson, "but they are likely to find them in the way of working, and to cast them aside.--Great s.h.i.+ps are not built for nothing: even to get the timber in readiness costs heavy labor, but, after all, no doubt, the men get interested in it and enjoy its excitement. Fortunately for the many uses to which its timber is put, the white pine grows very rapidly, gaining from fifteen inches to three feet every year. In deep and damp old woods it is slower of growth; it is then almost without sap-wood and has a yellowish color like the flesh of the pumpkin. For this reason it is called 'pumpkin-pine.' The bark of young trees of the white-pine species is very smooth and of a reddish, bottle-green color. It is covered in summer with a pearly gloss. On old trunks the bark is less rough than that of any other pine. This tree has the spreading habit of the cedar of Lebanon. In addition to its grand and picturesque character, the white pine, says a lover of trees, may be 'regarded as a true symbol of benevolence. Under its outspread roof numerous small animals, nestling in the bed of dry leaves that cover the ground, find shelter and repose. The squirrel feeds upon the kernels obtained from its cones; the hare browses upon the trefoil'--clover--'and the spicy foliage of the _hyperic.u.m_'--St. John's wort--'which are protected in its shade; and the fawn reposes on its brown couch of leaves unmolested by the outer tempest. From its green arbors the quails are often roused in midwinter, where they feed upon the berries of the _Mitch.e.l.la_ and the spicy wintergreen. Nature, indeed, seems to have specially designed this tree to protect her living creatures both in summer and in winter.'"

"Hurrah for the white pine," said Malcolm, with great energy, "the grand old _American_ tree!"

"I'm glad that the little birds and animals have such a nice home under it in winter," said Clara.

"I'm glad too," added Edith, "but I wish we could find some and see how they look in their soft bed. Don't they ever put their heads out the least bit, Miss Harson?"

"Not when they suspect that there is any one around, dear, and the little creatures are very sharp to find this out. Our heavenly Father, you know, takes thought for sparrows and all such helpless things, and they are fed and cared for without any thought of their own.--The white pine," she continued, "is truly a magnificent tree, but I think we shall find that the pitch-pine is also very useful."

"That's the rough one," said Malcolm; "I remember how it looks, with little tufts sticking out along the trunk."

"Yes," replied his governess, "and out authority says this tree is distinguished by its leaves being in threes--the white pine, you know, has them in _fives_--by the rigidity and sharpness of the scales of its cones, by the roughness of its bark, and by the denseness of the brushes of its stiff, crowded leaves. Its usual height is from forty to fifty feet, but it is sometimes much taller. The trunk is not only rough, but very dark in color; and from this circ.u.mstance the species is frequently called black pine. The wood is very hard and firm, and contains a quant.i.ty of resin. This is much more abundant in the branches than in the trunk, and the boards and other lumber of this wood are usually full of pitch-knots."

"What are pitch-knots?" asked Clara.

"'When a growing branch,'" read Miss Harson, "'is broken off, the remaining portion becomes charged with resin,' which is deposited by the resin-bearing sap of the tree, 'forming what is called a pitch-knot, extending sometimes to the heart. The same thing takes place through the whole heart of a tree when, full of juice, its life is suddenly destroyed.' 'Resin' is another name for turpentine, but is used of it commonly when hardened into a solid form. The tar is obtained by slowly burning splintered pine, both trunk and root, with a smothered flame, and collecting the black liquid, which is expelled by the heat and caught in cavities beneath the burning pile. Pitch is thickened tar, and is used in calking s.h.i.+ps and for like purposes."

"I am going to remember that," said Malcolm; "I could never make out what all those different things meant."

"What are you thinking about so seriously, Clara?" asked her governess.

"If it is a puzzle, let me see if I cannot solve it for you."

"Well, Miss Harson, I was thinking of those brown leaves, or 'needles,'

in the pine-woods, and it seems strange to say that the leaves of evergreens never fall off."

"It would not only be strange, dear, but quite untrue, to say that; for the same leaves do not, of course, remain for ever on the tree. The deciduous trees lose their leaves in the autumn and are entirely bare until the next spring, but the evergreens, although they renew their leaves, too, are never left without verdure of some sort. Late in October you may see the yellow or brown foliage of the pines, then ready to fall, surrounding the branches of the previous year's growth, forming a whorl of brown fringe surmounted by a tuft of green leaves of the present year's growth. Their leaves always turn yellow before the fall."

CHAPTER XIX.

_GIANT AND NUT PINES_.

Great was the surprise of Edith when Miss Harson gave the little sleeper a gentle shake and told her that it was time to be up. But the birds without the window told the same story, and the little maiden was soon at the breakfast-table and ready for the day's duties and enjoyments, including their "tree-talk."

"Are there any more kinds of pine trees?" asked Malcolm.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "AWAKE, LITTLE ONE!"]

"Yes, indeed!--more than we can take up this summer," replied Miss Harson. "There is the Norway pine, or red pine, which in Maine and New Hamps.h.i.+re is often seen in forests of white and pitch pine. It has a tall trunk of eighty feet or so, and a smooth reddish bark. The leaves are in twos, six or eight inches long, and form large tufts or brushes at the end of the branchlets. The wood is strong and resembles that of the pitch-pine, but it contains no resin. The giant pines of California belong to a different species from any that we have been considering, and the genus, or order, in which they have been arranged is called _Sequoia_[19]. They are generally known, however, as the 'Big Trees.' In one grove there are a hundred and three of them, which cover a s.p.a.ce of fifty acres, called 'Mammoth-Tree Grove.' One of the giants has been felled--a task which occupied twenty-two days. It was impossible to cut it down, in the ordinary sense of the term, and the men had to bore into it with augers until it was at last severed in twain. Even then the amazing bulk of the tree prevented it from falling, and it still kept its upright position. Two more days were employed in driving wedges into the severed part on one side, thus to compel the giant to totter and fall. The trunk was no less than three hundred and two feet in height and ninety-six in circ.u.mference. The stump, which was left standing, presented such a large surface that a party of thirty couples have danced with ease upon it and still left abundant room for lookers-on."

[19] _Sequoia gigantea_.

When the children had sufficiently exclaimed over the size of this huge tree, their governess continued:

"It is thought that these trees must have been growing for more than two thousand years, which would make them probably two hundred years old at the birth of our Saviour. Does it not seem wonderful to think of? There are other groups of giant pines scattered on the mountains and in the forests, and some youthful giants about five hundred years old."

"I suppose they are the babies of the family," said Clara; and this idea amused Edith very much.

"There is still another kind of pine," said Miss Harson--"the Italian, or stone, pine. It is shaped almost exactly like an umbrella with a very long handle. The _Pinus pinea_ bears large cones, the seed of which is not only eatable, but considered a delicious nut. The cone is three years in ripening; it is then about four inches long and three wide, and has a reddish hue. Each scale of which the cone is formed is hollow at the base and contains a seed much larger than that of any other species.

When the cone is ripe, it is gathered by the owners of the forest; and when thoroughly dried on the roof or thrown for a few minutes into the fire, it separates into many compartments, from each of which drops a smooth white nut in shape like the seed of the date. The sh.e.l.l is very hard, and within it is the fruit, which is much used in making sweetmeats. The stone-pine is found also in Palestine, and is supposed to be the cypress of the Bible. The author of _The Ride Through Palestine_[20] speaks of pa.s.sing through a fine grove of the stone-pine, 'tall and umbrella-topped,' with dry sticks rising oddly here and there from the very tops of the trees. These sticks were covered with birdlime, to snare the poor bird which might be tempted to set foot on such treacherous supports; and if the cones were ripe, they would be quite sure to do it. Here is the picture, from the book just mentioned.

Italian pine is a prettier name than stone-pine, and this is the name by which it is known to artists, who put it into almost every picture of Italian scenery.

"'Much they admire that old religious tree With shaft above the rest upshooting free, And shaking, when its dark locks feel the wind, Its wealthy fruit with rough and ma.s.sive rind.'"

[20] Presbyterian Board of Publication.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STONE-PINE--"FIR" _(Pinus maritima_)].

"But how queer it sounds to call fruit _wealthy_!" said Malcolm.

"It is odd," replied his governess, "only because the word is not now used in that sense; but the fruit is wealthy both because of its abundance and because it can be put to so many uses. Let us see what is said of it:

"'The kernels, or seeds, from the cones of the stone-pine have always been esteemed as a delicacy. In the old days of Rome and Greece they were preserved in honey, and some of the larders of the ill-fated city of Pompeii were amply stored with jars of this agreeable conserve, which were found intact after all those years. The kernels are also sugared over and used as _bonbons_. They enter into many dishes of Italian cookery, but great care has to be taken not to expose them to the air.

They are usually kept in the cones until they are wanted, and will then retain their freshness for some years. The squirrels eagerly seek after the fruit of this pine and almost subsist upon it. They take the cone in their paws and dash out the seeds, thus scattering many of them and helping to propagate the tree.

"'There is a bird called the crossbill that makes its nest in the pine.

It fixes its nest in place by means of the resin of the tree and coats it with the same material, so as to render it impervious to the rain.

The seeds from the cones form its chief food, and it extracts them with its curious bill, the two parts of which cross each other. It grasps the cone with its foot, after the fas.h.i.+on of a parrot, and digs into it with the upper part of its bill, which is like a hook, and forces out the seed with a jerk.'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: PINE-CONE (_Pinus Sylvestris_.)]

The children enjoyed this account very much, and they thought that stone-pine nuts--which they had never seen, and perhaps never would see--must be the most delicious nuts that ever grew.

"What nice times the birds have," said Clara, "helping themselves to all the good things that other people can't reach!"

"They are not exactly 'people,'" replied Miss Harson, laughing; "and, in spite of all these 'nice times,' you would not be quite willing to change with them, I think."

No, on the whole, Clara was quite sure that she would not.