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PATTERSON v. M'CAUSLAND 87
to be already fifty years old. I was told that the swamp in which
it grew had been burnt at least half a century before, and had
been re-peopled from a few stocks that escaped the conflagration,
or perhaps by the seeds of the preceding year.' (r) From which
it would seem, that the number of the concentrical circles in the
young cedar being found to correspond so nearly with the known
lapse of time within which it must have grown, after all the old
ones had been destroyed, might have induced this botanist to
speak of this fact as a corroboration of the general opinion; yet
be merely states the circumstance, and leaves the matter to the
judgment of the reader. But in another place he has distinctly
given us to understand, that however disposed to treat this opinion
with respect, he himself had no great confidence in its correctness.
In treating of the hemlock spruce, (abies canadensis,) he says,
'The hemlock spruce is always larger and taller than the black
spruce; it attains the height of seventy or eighty feet, with a cir-
cumference from six to nine feet, and uniform for two-thirds of its
length. But if the number and distance of the concentric circles
afford any certain criterion of the longevity of trees, and the
rapidity of their vegetation, it must be nearly two centuries in
acquiring such dimensions, (s)
The inferences deducible from the apparent number of concen-
trical layers found in the trunk of a tree, upon an inspection of a
transverse section of it, is, however, a kind of evidence which
can only be obtained by a posthumous examination. Such exami-
nation of the bodies of animals are common, and have often been
found very instructive in relation to the purposes for which they
have been made; but it is believed such an examination never
was made with a view to ascertain the age of the animal, or when
it would attain such a maturity as would give the greatest value
and utility to its body, or that of similar animals. Post mortem
examinations of the bodies of animals, are often made with a view
to ascertain points of comparative anatomy; to observe the organ-
ization of the body, so as thereby the better to understand how
living creatures of the same species should be treated in health, or
in disease; or to ascertain what may have been the immediate
(r) 2 Mich. Am. Sylva, 341,—(s) 2 Mich. Am. Sylva, 318. 'In a field of and
sandy loam, long under the usual cultivation, a piece of five or six acres was co-
vered by a second growth of pines thirty-nine years old, as supposed from that
number of rings being counted on some of the stumps. The largest trees were
eighteen or twenty inches through.'—Ruffin on Calcarious Manures, chap. 13,
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