Post 24834
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I often wondered how old they were. A chance to get this information came one morning when a number of old pines that grew around these stumps were blown over. Among those that went down were three large and ancient yellow pines and several smaller lodge-pole pines. These I dissected and studied, with the idea that their annual wood rings, together with the scars and embossments, might give information concerning the death of the old brown-gray stumps.
Two of the yellow pines showed two hundred and fifty-six annual rings; the other showed two hundred and fifty-five. All carried fire scars, received in the year 1781. Apparently, then, the stumps had been dead and weathering since 1781. The annual rings in the overthrown lodge-poles showed that they started to grow in 1782. Lodge-pole pines commonly spring up immediately after a fire; these had apparently taken possession of the ground as soon as it was laid bare by the fire that had killed and partly consumed the two yellow pines and injured the three scarred ones. Since the lodge-poles were free from fire scars, since the yellow pine showed no scar after 1781, and since all these trees had stood close about the stumps, it was plain that the stumps were the remnants of trees that perished in a forest fire in 1781.
Later, a number of trees elsewhere in the grove were called upon to testify, and these told a story that agreed with that of the trees that had stood close to the stumps. These stumps are now the newel-posts in a rustic stairway.