Life: Its True Genesis

by Horatius Flaccus

In 1845, a violent tornado swept a wide strip of forest in Northern New York, from the more thickly settled portions of Jefferson County to Lake Champlain. The timber that succumbed to the force of the tornado, and growing at various points along its track, was mainly beech, maple, birch, ash, hemlock, spruce, etc.; but it was rarely replaced, at any point, by the same timber, in the growths that almost immediately followed. The trees that are now growing along the track of the tornado are principally poplar, cherry, birch, and a little beech and ironwood: no ash, maple, spruce, or hemlock, except here and there, at considerable intervals, a tree or two which may have been replaced by natural seed. The important fact noticeable, in this connection, is that the aggressive timber--that replacing the old--entirely usurped the place of the evergreen growths, supplanting them with those that were wholly deciduous. Besides, it does not appear that the poplar, the cherry, and the ironwood, which were altogether aggressive, previously grew near enough to the track of the tornado to have possibly supplied the seed necessary for their appearance and growth.

The fact was specially noticeable at the time, and has been widely communicated since, that the white oak timber cut off at Valley Forge for fuel and other army purposes in the American camp, in the winter of 1777-78, was succeeded by black oak, hickory, chestnut, etc.--the white oak entirely disappearing, although by far the most favorably situated for propagation by seed. But the alternations of forest growths had attracted too little attention at that time to render the meagre facts given of any special value to scientific men. If the usurping timber had grown in the immediate neighborhood (a fact not stated), it might have come from natural seeds, and not from primordial germs under "favoring conditions."

In the Ohio Agricultural Report of 1872, an account is given of a storm-track, in that state, which swept for a considerable distance, and was violent enough to bear down all the timber before it. It is stated that the path of this tornado (which must have occurred many years ago) "had grown up with black-walnut, another and different growth from that prostrated by the force of the storm." In this instance, there were no neighboring trees, except perhaps at distant intervals, from which the nuts of the black-walnut could have been derived, unless they had been promiscuously strewn by the tornado along its entire track. But it is, unfortunately, not stated that the tornado occurred at that opportune season of the year when the nuts were properly matured for planting.

In many parts of the United States, particularly in the South and West, the paths of local tornadoes--those sweeping the native forests long before the axe of civilization invaded them--may still be traced by the alternations of timber growths, extending for long distances, and through forests where there were no neighboring trees from which it was possible that their seeds could have been derived. One of these tornadoes the writer traced many years ago (as early as 1837) in South Alabama, and he is satisfied, both from observation and reading, that the instances are rare, if not altogether exceptional, where the clean path of a tornado, through any of our primitive forests, has been succeeded by the same growth of timber as that borne down by the winds. Where the path of this ancient tornado of Alabama swept through a pine forest, a clean growth of oak was buttressed on either side by pine; and vice versa, where it swept an oak forest. And it is certain that the tornado, whenever it may have occurred, could have exhibited no such discriminating freak as alternately to distribute acorns in pine growths, and pine cones in oak growths, either to make good a scientific theory or balk an unscientific one.

Professor Agassiz, in passing through a dense young spruce forest some years ago, on the south shore of Lake Superior, noticed that the ground was thickly strewn with fallen birch trunks, showing that their place had been but recently usurped by the spruce; and he supposed that the birch had first succumbed to the force of the winds, and the spruce promptly taken its place, since, as a general rule, an evergreen growth succeeds a deciduous, and vice versa. We have any number of well authenticated facts similar to this stated by Professor Agassiz, but we cannot give place to them, in this connection, without greatly exceeding our limits.

Dr. Franklin B. Hough, in his recent "Report upon American Forestry," to which we have already referred, says: "It is not unusual to observe in the swamps of the northern states, an alternation of growth taking place without human agency. Extensive tracts of tamarack (Larix Americana) may be seen in northern Wisconsin that are dying out, and being succeeded by the balsam fir (Abies balsamea), which may be probably caused by the partial drainage of the swamps, from the decay or removal of a fallen tree that had obstructed the outlet." The writer of this work resided for a period of ten years or more in Wisconsin, and during that time traversed extensive portions of its territory, both before and after it became a state. As early as 1844, the extensive tamarack swamps of that region were manifestly dying out for the want of the proper nutritious elements in the soil, and the balsam fir rapidly taking its place, especially where the accumulations of soil, resulting from decayed vegetation, were favorable for its appearance. The drainage of the swamps had not been thought of at that time, nor had the swamps themselves been disposed of, to any considerable extent, by the federal government. They were subsequently granted to the state for educational purposes, and afterwards purchased up in the interest of speculative parties.

But the decay of the tamarack had really commenced long before population found its way, in any considerable numbers, into that section of the country; and the balsam fir had begun its usurpation, in many of the swamps, long prior to the advent there of the white man. Neither artificial drainage, nor accidental drainage, had anything to do with the appearance of the balsam fir, or the disappearance of the tamarack. The latter was manifestly dying out for the want of the proper nutriment, and the former coming in for the reason that the soil was chemically balanced for the development of its "primordial germs"--those everywhere implanted in the earth, to await the necessary conditions for their development and growth. The natural seeds of this balsam fir were not present in either the first, second, or third tamarack swamp in which this alternation of growth originally took place. The change commenced as soon as conditions favored, and not before. It is safe to say that, in none of these tamarack swamps, was there a single balsam fir cone, or a single chit to a cone, nor had there probably been for thousands of years, before the time when the first balsam fir made its appearance in that section. They came, as all primordial forests come, from germs, not from the seeds of trees. Universally, the germ precedes the tree, as the tree precedes the seed, in all vegetal growths, from the lowest cryptogam to the lordliest conifer of the Pacific slope. Otherwise, we should be logically driven back to an act of "specific creation," which the materialist stoutly rejects, and the Bible genesis nowhere affirms.

Mr. George B. Emerson, in his valuable work on the "Trees and Shrubs of Massachusetts," suggests as a cause (undoubtedly the true one) for the dying out of old forests, "the exhaustion of the nutritious elements of the soil required for their vigorous and successful growth." But he is evidently at fault in his speculations as to the alternations of forest growths. The Cretan labyrinth that everywhere confronts him is the "seed-theory," which is so inextricable to him that he constantly stumbles, as one scientifically blind, yet eager to lead the blind. All the phenomenal facts with which he deals admirably fit into the Bible genesis, but he fails to see it because the sublime truth (with him) lies locked up in an unmeaning translation. He is indefatigable, however, in his hunt after seeds where there are no seeds, and in his jumps at conclusions where there are manifestly no data to justify them.

He says: "Nature points out in various ways, and the observation of practical men has almost uniformly confirmed the conclusion to which the philosophical botanist has come from theoretical considerations, that a rotation of crops is as important in the forests as in the cultivated fields." And he supplements this statement (measurably a true one) by adding that "a pine forest is often, without the agency of man, succeeded by an oak forest, where there were a few oaks previously scattered through the woods to furnish seed." This is a very cautious, as well as circumspect, statement; but one that Mr. Emerson would not have made, had his experience and observation been that of Professor Agassiz, Professor Marsh, and others we might name. His few oaks previously scattered through the woods are no doubt among the "theoretical considerations" taken into account by him, as a philosophical botanist rather than a practical one. They were necessary for the extreme caution with which he would state a proposition when its "conditioning facts" were not fully known by him. His anxiety to account for the appearance of an oak forest in the place of a pine, where the latter had been cut off, was commendable enough to justify him in a pretty broad supposition, but not in any such general statement as he here makes. Had he consulted any of the older inhabitants of Westford, Littleton, and adjoining towns, in his own state, he would have found that not a few oak forests had succeeded the pine without the intervention of "scattered oaks," or even scattered acorns, in the localities named. Nor would his "squirrel-theory" of distribution have been very confidently adhered to, fifty years ago, in localties where the shagbark walnut was almost as abundant as the white oak itself. No squirrel will gather acorns where he can possibly get hickory nuts, and few will gather hickory nuts where the larger and thinner-shelled walnuts are to be had for the picking. The squirrel is provident, but no more so than he is fastidious in the choice of his food. He never plants acorns except for his own gratification, and is never gratified with indifferent food so long as he can command that which is to his liking.

In further speaking of the "exhausted elements" of the soil--those necessary for the food of trees as well as plants, and without which they inevitably perish and disappear--Mr. Emerson says; "This is clearly indicated in what is constantly going on in the forests, particularly the fact which I have already stated, and which is abundantly confirmed by my correspondents, that a forest of one kind is frequently succeeded by a spontaneous growth of trees of another kind." In the sense in which he manifestly uses the term "spontaneous" in this connection, his new forest might be accounted for on the theory of "primordial germs," but not on that of "seeds;" for few trees or shrubs in Massachusetts bear winged seeds, or possess any other means of dispersion (the Acer family excepted) than those common to our general forest growths. Spontaneity, in a strictly scientific sense, is not predicable upon the artificial or chance sowing of either acorns, hickory nuts, or the chits to pine cones. A spontaneous growth implies a process which is neither usual nor accidental--a growth without external cause, but from inherent natural tendency--and it is questionable whether there is any such process in nature. It belongs to the same class of idle speculations as "spontaneous generation" in the infusorial world--a subject that will be considered as we advance in this work.