It appears that I saw about a dozen plants which had accompanied man as far into the woods as Chesuncook, and had naturalized them...selves there, in 1853. Plants begin thus early to spring by the side of a logging-path,--a mere vista through the woods, which can only be used in the winter, on account of the stumps and fallen trees,--which are at length are the roadside plants in old settlements. The pioneers of such are planted in part by the first cattle, which cannot be summered in the woods.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The prevailing trees (I speak only of what I saw) on the east and west branches of the Penobscot and on the upper part of the Alle...gash were the fir, spruce (both black and white), and arbor-vitæ, or "cedar."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The handsomest and most interesting flowers were the great purple orchises, rising ever and anon, with their great purple spikes p...erfectly erect, amid the shrubs and grasses of the shore. It seemed strange that they should be made to grow there in such profusion, seen of moose and moose-hunters only, while they are so rare in Concord.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It appears that in a forest like this the great majority of flowers, shrubs, and grasses are confined to the banks of the rivers a...nd lakes, and to the meadows, more open swamps, burnt lands, and mountain-tops; comparatively very few indeed penetrate the woods. There is no such dispersion even of wild-flowers as is commonly supposed, or as exists in a cleared and settled country. Most of our wild-flowers, so called, may be considered as naturalized in the localities where they grow. Rivers and lakes are the great protectors of such plants against the aggressions of the forest, by their annual rise and fall keeping open a narrow strip where these more delicate plants have light and space in which to grow. They are the protégés of the rivers. These narrow and straggling bands and isolated groups are, in a sense, the pioneers of civilization. Birds, quadrupeds, insects, and man also, in the main, follow the flowers, and the latter in his turn makes more room for them and for berry-bearing shrubs, birds, and small quadrupeds. One settler told me that not only blackberries and raspberries but mountain maples came in, in the clearing and burning.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We saw many straggling white pines, commonly unsound trees, which had therefore been skipped by the choppers; these were the large...st trees we saw; and we occasionally passed a small wood in which this was the prevailing tree; but I did not notice nearly so many of these trees as I can see in a single walk in Concord.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »