Sapling

“ But his words have made a very deep print in our hearts, like the step of a strong buffalo on the soft clay of the prairie.
Brother! I perceive your little son between your knees. God preserve his life, my brother. He grows up before you like the tender sapling by the side of the mighty oak. May the oak and the sapling flourish a long time together. And when the mighty oak is fallen to the ground, may the young tree fill its place in the forest, and spread out its branches over the tribe like the parent trunk. ”

“ The frost touches them, and, with the slightest breath of returning day or jarring of earth's axle, see in what showers they come floating down! The ground is all party-colored with them. But they still live in the soil, whose fertility and bulk they increase, and in the forests that spring from it. They stoop to rise, to mount higher in coming years, by subtle chemistry, climbing by the sap in the trees, and the sapling's first fruits thus shed, transmuted at last, may adorn its crown, when, in after-years, it has become the monarch of the forest. ”

“ He leaped to the tree and scaled it as he had often climbed a mast, and he thrust the sapling under the staple, trimming the point down with the knife as he clutched the tree by his knees, and then, catching the young hickory like a lever, he dropped down the pine trunk and got his shoulder under the sapling and brought the weight of his body desperately against it. ”

“ The size, number, and position of the branches, the shape of the trunk, the toughness of the wood in the sapling, and the softness of that of the pumpkin Pine, all indicate a specific and essential difference. We have seen whole groves of saplings on low, swampy land. The same number of saplings are generally much sounder than an equal number of soft Pine. ”

“ Each new sapling planted today connects us to our parks and wilderness areas here at home, as well as to the tropical forests and wetlands around the world. We must ensure that our children and their descendants have just as much to celebrate on Arbor Day 100 years from now. ”

“ What planter will attempt to yoke A sapling with a falling oak? ”

“ The other end he tied securely to the sapling directly over the run, first spreading the noose wide, until the bottom swung about three inches from the ground, the sides touched the upright sticks on either side, and the top hung just below the sapling. ”

“ Trees, some of them fifty to seventy-five feet high, were bent to the ground and buried like grass, whole groves vanishing as if the forest had been cleared away, leaving not a branch or needle visible until the spring thaw. Then the more elastic undamaged saplings rose again, aided by the wind, some reaching a nearly erect attitude, others remaining more or less bent, while those with broken backs endeavored to specialize a side branch below the break and make a leader of it to form a new axis of development. ”

“ So, in large or small, it is with all the shrubs and trees. Each is loaded and primed and waits but the touch of the match in the crescent warmth of the spring sun. Then will come the yearly explosion. It is hard to say which of these next-year promises shows most vigor, yet I think on the whole I would give the prize to the sapling pines. Each central shoot of these will go up in the season from fifteen to thirty inches, and send out four or five laterals. ”

“ If the sapling is so situated that it obtains a bountiful supply of food and sunlight, a unique cane of natural growth will be the result.
Having taken a hint from nature in the case of the bitter-sweet vine and the hickory sapling, I extended my experiments in many directions. Taking three cuttings (slips) of basket-willow, I planted them close together as shown in Fig. 2. After they had taken root and begun to push out branches, I reduced the number of branches to one for each cutting, always retaining the most vigorous branch. ”

“ It had once been cleared, but young seedlings of birch and poplar and maple, with willows along the course of a hidden stream, had been suffered to partly reclaim it. Here and there a group of dark fir or hemlock stood out among the slenderer saplings. Now, all this valley was transmuted to crystal. The soft white surface of the snow was overlaid with a sheet of transparent silver, flashing white light and cold but coloured fire. Every bush and tree was a miracle of frostwork, lavish, inexhaustible, infinitely varied, and of an unspeakable purity wherever it failed to catch the young light. ”

“ The saplings and the gourds are reckoned alike in the fifty cubits square. Rabban Simon, the son of Gamaliel, said, “for every ten cucumbers in the fifty cubits square, men may plough the fifty cubits square around them till new year's day.”
8. “How long are they called saplings?” Rabbi Eleazar, the son of Azariah, said,42 “till they can be used.” R. Joshua said, “till the age of seven years.” R. Akiba said, “a sapling, as commonly named.” “A tree decays and sprouts afresh; when less than a handbreadth, it is a sapling; when more than a handbreadth, it is a tree.” The words of Rabbi Simon. ”

“ It is a very blaze of sunshine that fills the open spaces of the wood. The tall ash saplings that join hands across the path, now almost lost among the briar sprays, the trailing woodbine, and the long arms of wandering bryony, sway slowly in the hot and heavy air. But the stir of the leaves that flutter lightly overhead, their green lacework all dark against the summer sky, is a restful, soothing sound. ”

“ To set the trap, a long, thin, and pliable climber, which in these forests is so plentiful, is attached to the end of the severed sapling, when this is bent to its extreme position and is then led over branches, serving as pulleys, right across the path and directly in front of the mouth of the blow-gun and is tied to some small root covered with leaves. ”

“ As cattle thirsted never for the spring.
And Leah answered, Are not these their names—
As Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah—four?
Like four young saplings by the water's brim,
Where straining rivers through the great plain wind—
Four saplings soon to rise to goodly trees—
Four trees whose growth shall cast an huger shade
Than ever yet on river-side was seen. ”

“ It is difficult to push one's way through the undergrowth, the saplings are so tough, and brambles, armed with clinging, tearing hooks, trail everywhere in the waist-high grass. The litter of old reed-stems is hidden by the new growth, but jagged broken staves wait for the unwary foot, and the ancient stocks of cut osiers cause one to stumble ”

“ Mighty trees towered upwards, branches interlacing and shutting out the sun, while down below, in the aisles of tree-trunks, stood the smaller brethren and the saplings, waiting the fall of some neighbouring giant to give them in turn room to lift their branches towards the light. ”

“ It is this trim and certain growth that sets out the fir from all the mountain trees, and gives to the young saplings a secret look as they stand straight and stiffly among the wild brambles on the hill. ”

“ Planting, if done at all, was done only with wildlings dug from the woods, and usually, following the practice of the planting of oak in pastures, with saplings: the plant material was too large for success. ”

“ WATCHED. After luncheon, the girls, with two sharp hatchets among them, began a search through the timber for some long, slim saplings. After a half hour's search they were in possession of three straight cottonwood poles, ten or twelve feet long, and with these in their possession, they began an examination of the water-depth along the shore for a safe and suitable bathing place. ”

“ Upon cleared or open land thousands of saplings will cover much of the ground, but nearly all these will die off due to crowding, and leave as the climax only enough trees to close over the forest canopy. ”

“ While yet only mere saplings five or six inches thick at the ground, they measure fifty or sixty feet in height and are beautifully clothed with broad, level, fronded plumes down to the base, preserving a strict arrowy outline, though a few of the larger branches shoot out in free exuberance, relieving the spire from any unpicturesque stiffness of aspect, while the conical summit is crowded with thousands of rich brown cones to complete its beauty. ”

“ But slowly the growth increases; the bushes pass into saplings and the saplings into trees, and the undergrowth then disappears just as surely as do the migrants which can no longer find there the conditions which they require. ”

“ Adventitious buds lend themselves to valuable uses. Suppose a number of young saplings to be planted at proper intervals in the ground. If they are then left to themselves these saplings grow each into a single trunk and form collectively a wood or forest. ”

“ Close examination by the scientist of the party showed that it was a path chiefly of Nature’s making; probably a dried-up watercourse which had been used by men and cattle at sufficiently frequent intervals to prevent the saplings, suckers, and undergrowth from becoming a serious obstruction. ”

“ The oak saplings offered an ideal material for an arbor, although the clasp-knife did not bite readily through their tough fibers. Jointly we interlaced the crowns of six or seven stout saplings, growing in a circle, and twisted long branches in and out of the stems. We made a small but dense roof. ”

“ It was all down, down, down, gradually—ruin and levelling and disappearance. Then it was all up, up, up, gradually, as seeds grew to saplings, and saplings to forest trees, and bramble and fern came creeping in to help. ”

“ At night the sheep are herded in folds made of braided saplings which are planted and grown for that express purpose. A grove of elms or hickory or other flexible saplings can be planted at a slight expense, and when they are two or three years old they can be cut and braided like basket work. ”

“ Three saplings, stripped of their branches, and bound together at their ends by twigs, formed a kind of bedstead, which was raised from the ground by four stones; ropes stretched across these, and covered by a blanket, c0nstituted the bed: a board, of which one end rested on the bedstead, and the other was thrust between the logs that composed the wall, sustained the stale fragments of a rye loaf; a cedar bucket, kept entire by withs instead of hoops, in which was a little water, full of droppings from the roof, drowned insects, and sand ”

“ Likely enough before they begin to fall, a whole lot of young trees and sprouts have started from the ground, and are growing among them. Now, nothing is more likely than that some of these falling trees may happen to fall upon these young saplings and sprouts. ”

“ The land thus railed round had been cleared for some years; the grass is good, and the stumps few in number. Leaving this, we came to the stubble of last year, where the stumps were more numerous, and then to the land only cleared in the spring, covered thickly with charred stumps, the soil rich and black, and wheat springing up in all directions. Beyond this there was nothing but bush. A scramble through a bush, though very interesting in its way, produces disagreeable consequences. ”

“ The soil and the deep-striking roots of the forest terminate far above you, looking like a black rim on the inclosing precipices; the bed of the river and its sky-sustaining walls are of solid rock, and, with the tremendous descent of the stream—forming for miles one continuous succession of falls and rapids—the channel is worn into curves and cavities which throw the clear waters into forms of inconceivable brilliancy and variety. ”

“ And the river too runs past, not at flood, nor swiftly, but cloying the oar that dips in it and drops white drops from the blade, swimming green and deep over the bowed rushes, as if lavishly caressing them.
Where they moored their boat the trees showered down, so that their topmast leaves trailed in the ripples and the green wedge that lay in the water being made of leaves shifted in leaf-breadths as the real leaves shifted. ”

“ And when they arrive at the field, what do they see? The entire field is unharmed. The stalks of grain lift their heads up bravely, as if they too would give thanks for the beautiful rain which has so refreshed them. But on both sides of the field a whole stream has poured down from the hill, and nothing is to be seen but a wild mass of rocks and stones. Whose is the strong hand which seized the rain flood, and parted it just before it came to the field, and so gently led it down on both sides of the field? ”

“ The canoe we turned bottom up and left in the bushes, and so we set off through the forest.
At the end of fifteen minutes we began to mount a gentle ascent. The gentle ascent speedily became a sharp slope, the sharp slope an abrupt hill, and the latter finally an almost sheer face of rock and thin soil. We laid hold doggedly of little cedars; we dug our fingers into little crevices, and felt for the same with our toes; we perspired in streams and breathed in gasps; we held the strained muscles of our necks rigid, for the twisting of a pack meant here a dangerous fall ”

“ Hid as yet within the sheath are those sturdy heads of cocks-foot grass which, later in the summer, will bring into the silence of the hills gangs of grass-seeders, broad-hatted, bent of back, sickle in hand—owing to the slope and surface, machinery is worthless here—to gather in its harvest. ”

“ I continued N.E., E. and N.E., skirting the river, for a mile and a half, in the gently inclining slope, at first varied with sandy elevations, and rushy hollows, which appear to have been partly covered with water in the rainy season, and in some of which there are the dry channels of winter streamlets; then uniformly on a soil diversified with brownish gravel and good dark coloured earth, that has produced a very fine crop of grass now withered and beaten down. ”