The more rapid growth and greater dimensions of trees standing near the boundary of the forest, are matters of familiar observation. "Long experience has shown that trees growing on the confines of the wood may be cut at sixty years of age as advantageously as others of the same species, reared in the depth of the forest, at a hundred and twenty. We have often remarked, in our Alps, that the trunk of trees upon the border of a grove is most developed or enlarged upon the outer or open side, where the branches extend themselves farthest, while the concentric circles of growth are most uniform in those entirely surrounded by other trees, or standing entirely alone."—A. and G. Villa, Necessità dei Boschi, pp. 17, 18.
[251] Caimi states that "a single flotation in the Valtelline in 1839, caused damages alleged to amount to more than $800,000, and actually appraised at $250,000."—Cenni sulla Importanza e Coltura dei Boschi, p. 65.
[252] Most physicists who have investigated the laws of natural hydraulics maintain that, in consequence of direct obstruction and frictional resistance to the flow of the water of rivers along their banks, there is both an increased rapidity of current and an elevation of the water in the middle of the channel, so that a river presents always a convex surface. The lumbermen deny this. They affirm that, while rivers are rising, the water is highest in the middle of the channel, and tends to throw floating objects shoreward; while they are falling, it is lowest in the middle, and floating objects incline toward the centre. Logs, they say, rolled into the water during the rise, are very apt to lodge on the banks, while those set afloat during the falling of the waters keep in the current, and are carried without hindrance to their destination.
Foresters and lumbermen, like sailors and other persons whose daily occupations bring them into contact, and often, into conflict, with great natural forces, have many peculiar opinions, not to say superstitions. In one of these categories we must rank the universal belief of lumbermen, that with a given head of water, and in a given number of hours, a sawmill cuts more lumber by night than by day. Having been personally interested in several sawmills, I have frequently conversed with sawyers on this subject, and have always been assured by them that their uniform experience established the fact that, other things being equal, the action of the machinery of sawmills is more rapid by night than by day. I am sorry—perhaps I ought to be ashamed—to say that my scepticism has been too strong to allow me to avail myself of my opportunities of testing this question by passing a night, watch in hand, counting the strokes of a millsaw. More unprejudiced, and I must add, very intelligent and credible persons have informed me that they have done so, and found the report of the sawyers abundantly confirmed. A land surveyor, who was also an experienced lumberman, sawyer, and machinist, a good mathematician and an exact observer, has repeatedly told me, that he had very often "timed" sawmills, and found the difference in favor of night work above thirty per cent. Sed quære.
[253] For many instances of this sort, see Becquerel, Des Climats, etc., pp. 301-303. In 1664, the Swedes made an incursion into Jutland and felled a considerable extent of forest. After they retired, a survey of the damage was had, and the report is still extant. The number of trees cut was found to be 120,000, and as an account was kept of the numbers of each species of tree, the document is of interest in the history of the forest, as showing the relative proportions between the different trees which composed the wood. See Vaupell. Bögens Indvandring, p. 35, and Notes, p. 55.
[254] Since writing this paragraph, I have fallen upon—and that in a Spanish author—one of those odd coincidences of thought which every man of miscellaneous reading so often meets with. Antonio Ponz (Viage de España, i, prólogo, p. lxiii), says: "Nor would this be so great an evil, were not some of them declaimers against trees, thereby proclaiming themselves, in some sort, enemies of the works of God, who gave us the leafy abode of Paradise to dwell in, where we should be even now sojourning, but for the first sin, which expelled us from it."
I do not know at what period the two Castiles were bared of their woods, but the Spaniard's proverbial "hatred of a tree" is of long standing. Herrera vigorously combats this foolish prejudice; and Ponz, in the prologue to the ninth volume of his journey, says that many carried it so far as wantonly to destroy the shade and ornamental trees planted by the municipal authorities. "Trees," they contended, and still believe, "breed birds, and birds eat up the grain." Our author argues against the supposition of the "breeding of birds by trees," which, he says, is as absurd as to believe that an elm tree can yield pears; and he charitably suggests that the expression is, perhaps, a manière de dire, a popular phrase, signifying simply that trees harbor birds.
[255] Religious intolerance had produced similar effects in France at an earlier period. "The revocation of the edict of Nantes and the dragonnades occasioned the sale of the forests of the unhappy Protestants, who fled to seek in foreign lands the liberty of conscience which was refused to them in France. The forests were soon felled by the purchasers, and the soil in part brought under cultivation."'—Becquerel, Des Climats, etc., p. 303.
[256] The American reader must be reminded that, in the language of the chase and of the English law, a "forest" is not necessarily a wood. Any large extent of ground, withdrawn from cultivation, reserved for the pleasures of the chase, and allowed to clothe itself with a spontaneous growth, serving as what is technically called "cover" for wild animals, is, in the dialects I have mentioned, a forest. When, therefore, the Norman kings afforested the grounds referred to in the text, it is not to be supposed that they planted them with trees, though the protection afforded to them by the game laws would, if cattle had been kept out, soon have converted them into real woods.
[257] Histoire des Paysans, ii, p. 190. The work of Bonnemère is of great value to those who study the history of mediæval Europe from a desire to know its real character, and not in the hope of finding apparent facts to sustain a false and dangerous theory. Bonnemère is one of the few writers who, like Michelet, have been honest enough and bold enough to speak the truth with regard to the relations between the church and the people in the Middle Ages.