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20 September 1860, Thursday
Concord, Massachusetts; Town Hall
"The Succession of Forest Trees"
[Back to Calendar of Lectures]
NARRATIVE OF EVENT: The circumstances leading
up to Thoreau’s 20 September 1860 address at the Middlesex Cattle Show are not known.
It has been suggested, however, that Thoreau’s lecture answers many of the questions
raised in a discussion at the Concord Farmers Club on 12 April 1860, following the reading
of an essay on "Forest Trees" by Concordian Charles L. Heywood.1
Thoreau’s journal entry for the day
of his lecture is cryptically brief. "Cattle-Show. Rainy in forenoon," he noted.
The next day’s entry embellishes his weather report, but adds nothing to explain the
cattle-show, "Hard rain last night. About one and seven eighths inches fallen since
yesterday morning, and river rising again" (J, 14:90).
Other accounts, fortunately, are fuller,
including this 20 September journal entry by Simon Brown, former lieutenant governor of
Massachusetts and a participant in the day’s events. He wrote:
Our annual Agricultural Festival. It began to rain at 8 o’clock and rained through
most of the forenoon. No cattle were exhibited this year on account of the disease. The
show of horses and Fruits was very fine. The Address was by Mr. Thoreau, President Felton
of Harvard College, Levi Stockbridge of South Hadley and Mr. Hudson, of Lexington spoke
well.2
The liveliest, most detailed account of
the festival was provided by the above-mentioned Levi Stockbridge. A member of the
Massachusetts Board of Agriculture, Stockbridge wrote an official report in which he
judged Thoreau and the other speakers good, the weather bad, and the exhibition itself a
mitigated failure:
As a delegate from the State Board of
Agriculture, I attended the sixty-eighth annual exhibition of the Middlesex Society,
holden at Concord, on the 20th of September. And although I was pleased and highly
entertained by some portions of the show, I was not, as a whole, very favorably impressed
by it. Fears of the cattle scourge prevented the exhibition of neat stock, and the horses,
though respectable in numbers, looked mean, and I doubt not looked as they felt, for being
compelled to exhibit themselves in a pouring rain. . . . A ploughing match by seven
competitors, was entered into with spirit, and excellent work performed in spite of the
weather; but spectators seemed to prefer shelter from the storm, rather than the
excitement and instruction of the trial, and a thorough drenching. . . .
The weather, though injurious to the
interest of the society, was treated as a capital joke; the greatest good feeling and
hilarity prevailed. The occasion was enlivened by Gilmore’s brass band, that gave
snatches of melody in the open air during the occasional gleams of sunshine, but who,
unlike the ploughmen, made a precipitous retreat to the hall when the rain clouds swept
by. The society had no public dinner, but listened in large numbers and with apparent
interest and satisfaction to an excellent address from one of the citizens of Concord, Mr.
Thoreau. The address was an answer to the question, "Why when a pine forest is cut
down, does a hard wood forest take its place?" In answering this, the speaker showed
clearly the necessity of rotation of crops, the great vitality of seeds under favorable
circumstances, and the means nature had provided for scattering and planting the seeds of
trees and plants. President Felton, of Harvard College, made a pithy speech,
contrasting the customs and methods of farming in the olden time with those of the present
day, and urged a higher culture as the means of still greater advancement. Hon. Charles
Hudson, of Lexington, spoke of the value and importance of agriculture to the State, and
urged the necessity of its being fostered and encouraged.
At the conclusion of these exercises, the
annual meeting of the society was holden; a new board of officers elected, the report of
the treasurer, showing the financial affairs of the society to be prosperous, was
presented and accepted, and the awards of the various examining committees made known.
As has already been intimated, the show of
the Middlesex Society did not, as a whole, realize my expectations; but the State bounty
has not been by any means misapplied or wasted. The partial failure was owing to causes
over which the society or members had no control. Rainy days, or years of
pleuro-pneumonia, may again occur, but the beneficial stimulus of the State money will be
seen, as this season, in the encouragement it gives to those branches of agriculture that
require the year for illustration rather than the day of exhibition. This society is much
more limited at the present time, in its field of operations, than during the years of its
early history. The incorporation of the Middlesex North, at Lowell, and South, at
Framingham, have somewhat localized it to the middle of the county, but its premium list
is open to competitors within the county limits, and numbers avail themselves of the
privilege. . . .
In closing this report, I wish to call the
attention of the Board to a transaction that occurred on the grounds of this society, near
the closing hours of its last exhibition. An intoxicated Irishman, in a fit of drunken
frenzy, with a dangerous weapon stabbed two men severely, and, as was feared at the time,
fatally. For this occurrence the officers or members of the society were not culpable.
General good order prevailed, and the offenders in this brawl were promptly arrested. It
is a question whether our societies are sufficiently guarded and empowered by legislation,
to protect themselves from scenes of a similar character. We desire these annual
exhibitions to be holidays to the entire community; but good order, sobriety, and decorum
should be the law of conduct. We wish our families, our wives and children to attend them;
and it is imperative that they should not be made thereby the witnesses of scenes that
shock the finer sensibilities, or be brought in contact with any thing contaminating to
purity and morality. At such large gatherings the refuse of society are prone to
congregate, with no laudable object in view, and the officers of the societies should have
legal powers to prevent all drunkenness and debauchery, wantonness or rioting, on or about
their exhibition grounds. If the laws are already sufficient, they should be enforced with
promptness and energy; if not, we should forthwith seek the enactment of such as will
accomplish the desired end.3
Other details of the event are provided
in the Transactions of the Middlesex Aricultural Society for the Year 1860, which
reports, in part:
The day was very stormy, and prevented
many contributors and spectators from being present; the rain fell in torrents nearly all
day. . . .
At 2 o’clock, p.m., a procession was
formed at the society’s hall, under the efficient direction of N. Henry Warren, Chief
Marshall, and proceeded, under escort of Gilmore’s band, to the Town Hall, where the
meeting was called to order by the President, who after a few remarks introduced to the
audience Mr. Henry D. Thoreau, who delivered a fine address.
At the close of the address of Mr.
Thoreau, Gov. Boutwell, President of the Society, congratulated the audience that they had
heard an address so plain and practical, and at the same time showing such close
observation, and careful study of natural phenomena. "As the orator’s subject
was Trees," said Gov. Boutwell, "I may be allowed to allude to a branch of
agricultural occupation, to which, as it seems to me, too little attention is paid. I mean
the accurate observation of objects and events which come within the notice of farmers. If
they would exhibit a little of the spirit shown by Mr. Thoreau in his experiments and
researches, they could greatly benefit themselves and the whole community.4
George S. Boutwell, the society president who introduced Thoreau and praised his
speech, was a former Governor of Massachusetts. In the year of Thoreau’s talk he was
Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education. The report also notes the
recruitment effort for hardscrabble New England farming offered by another speaker,
Charles Hudson, who "spoke of the slovenly farming of the South and West, and of the
indolence which abundance and ease of husbandry is apt to produce, and recommended the
young men of New England to remain at home, rather than go West or South for easier
tillage and greater crops."5
Nine days after his lecture, Thoreau sent
the following query to his old friend Horace Greeley:
Knowing your interest in whatever
relates to Agriculture, I send you with this a short address delivered by me before
"the Middlesex Agricultural Society," in this town, Sep. 20, on The Succession
of Forest Trees. It is part of a chapter on the Dispersion of Seeds. If you would like to
print it, please accept it. If you do not wish to print it entire, return it to me
at once, for it is due to the Society’s "Report" a month or 6 weeks
hence[.] (C, p. 590)
Greeley accepted the address, and it was published just a week later in the 6 October New-York
Weekly Tribune. The lecture was subsequently printed, in whole or in part, in several
other journals and reports, thus becoming the most widely circulated of Thoreau’s
shorter essays during his lifetime (Days, pp. 439-40). One place it did not appear,
however, was in the new Dial magazine begun in Cincinnati by Moncure Conway,
despite the invitation Conway extended to Thoreau on 26 November 1860: "We are
thinking of issuing the Dial next year as a Quarterly instead of a Monthly; and I
wish to ask if you will be so bountiful as to let me publish therein your Agricultural
Address" (C, p. 601).
ADVERTISEMENTS, REVIEWS, AND
RESPONSES: In addition to the praise for Thoreau’s lecture included in the
official reports quoted above, other responses suggest that his talk was well received at
the time and aroused continuing interest, if not complete agreement. Among those responses
is a diary entry for 20 September 1860 recorded by the ever-faithful Bronson Alcott:
P. M. At the town Hall and hear Henry
Thoreau’s discourse before the Middlesex Agricultural Society, on Nature’s
Methods of planting forest trees in nuts and seeds by Animals and wind. Admirably
scientific and interesting. Speeches by B. F. Tilton and others. Ex Gov. Boutwell
presides. There was a ploughing motor and a Cavalcading Horses, and a show of fruits
&c.
I do not go upon the Agriculture grounds.
Rains.6
On 17 November 1860, a month after the
event, Isaac M. Wellington, principal of Elmira Free Academy in Elmira, New York, wrote
Thoreau requesting a copy of his speech for classroom use:
The subject of the Succession of Forest
Trees is greatly interesting [to] me. If I am rightly informed you not long since read a
Paper on this subject before the Middlesex Agr. Soc. Would you be so kind as to inform me
if your Address has been published & if so, where I may obtain?
Before trespassing further on your
kindness, permit me briefly to state what we are doing. Being a native of Waltham,
Mass, this present year, Elmira Free Academy is given to my charge. In carrying out a
novel plan of Composition & Thinking Class Exercises, my seventy five
pupils—aged from twelve to twenty—and myself are come to the above subject.
Judging from past experience, I shall so enthusuize [sic] them that their letters
to me, after laying the matter before them, will abound in questions & facts. I
anticipate one question of the following sort. "Does not Nature sow her
forests—waiving the agencies for sowing for the moment—by putting in her seed at
some period long anterior to the growing?["] Such a question will involve research as
regards the long lived vitality of seeds. I know of but little written upon this latter
subject, & this letter is not based upon any presented facts touching the
vitality of seeds. Your greater research & experience might direct me to books &
facts throwing light upon this subject. Could you take this trouble you would largely aid
one toiling to lead the young from many of the frivolous, to some of the useful, ways of
living & confer a great favor[.]7
Almost a month later, on 13 December,
Horace Greeley’s schedule relaxed enough to give him time to write a letter to
Thoreau voicing his reservations about a couple of the assertions Thoreau had made in the
lecture-essay Greeley had published in his newspaper over two months earlier:
Friend Thoreau: I have been too busy to
thank you sooner for your essay on "The Propagation of Trees," of which I trust
you received a number of printed copies. I read it of course with interest, yet without
absolute concurrence. I had hoped to find in it some allusion to the facts (or, if you
please, allegations) with which I once combated your theory, in a conversation which you
have probably forgotten. Allow me to restate them:
First: In the great Pine forest
which covers (or recently covered) much of Maine, New-Brunswick, &c. a long Summer
drouth has sometimes been followed by a sweeping fire, which swept a district forty miles
long by ten to twenty broad as with the besom of destruction. Not only is the timber
entirely killed and mainly consumed, but the very soil, to a depth varying from six to
thirty inches, is utterly burned to ashes, down to the very hard-pan. The very next
season, up springs a new and thick growth of White Birch—a tree not before known
there. Not a pine or other fir—nothing but miles on miles of deciduous trees, almost
entirely White Birch. I have seen this on a small scale, and am well assured that it is
true on every scale. How do you reconcile it with your theory that trees are never
generated spontaneously, but always from some nut, or seed, or root, pree|uxisting in that
same locality?
Second: Here is a fact to which I
cannot be mistaken: Go three days[‘] journey into a dense, dark, stately forest of
Beach, Maple, Elm, &c., and cut down trees so as to clear a place from twenty to sixty
feet square; roll up your logs in the middle of it, and burn them—say in June—to
ashes; of course, burning up the soil also. In a month or two, that ash-bed will be
covered by a thick, rank growth of fireweed—a plant for which I know no other name,
but with which you are doubtless familiar. The trees stand thick and tall all around,
almost shutting out the sky, of which you have a bare glimpse directly over head. Winds
are scarcely known there beneath the tree-tops. Fireweed was previously unknown. Do you
really insist that fireweed springs uniformly from seeds of that plant? If yes, how do you
account for their abundance in these widely separated firebeds, and those only?
Thoreau, who was at that time bed-ridden and had since the first week of the month been
suffering from the illness that would eventually kill him, was not able to respond to
Greeley’s letter until 30 December:
Friend Greeley: I received the copies
of The Tribune containing my address, for which I thank you, and I send you by the same
mail with this a copy slightly amended.
Let me consider your objections:
First: You say that "in the
great Pine Forest which covers (or recently covered) much of Maine, New-Brunswick,
&c." fires have sometimes completely destroyed all the timber, and all
combustible matter in the soil, to the depth of "six to thirty inches," over
areas forty miles long by ten or twenty broad; and that yet, "the very next season,
up springs a new and thick growth of White Birch, a tree not before known there," and
"not a pine" among them; and you ask how I can reconcile this with my
"theory that trees are never generated spontaneously, but always from some
seed," or the like?
To which I reply, that this is not so much
my theory as observation. Yours is pure theory, without a single example to support
it. As I have said, I do not intend to discuss the question of spontaneous generation, for
the burden of proof lies with those who maintain that theory.
By pine forest, you mean, of course, white
pine. I assert that this never covers any large area—a township, for instance—to
the entire exclusion, or anything like it, of other trees. As explorers for pine timber
well know, one peculiarity of the white pine is its habit of growing in "veins"
and "communities," in the midst of the forest, greatly to their convenience, but
never monopolizing a large tract, like grass. In three excursions deep into the wilderness
of Maine, within the last fifteen years, I have found this comparatively a rare
tree. Fir, Spruce, Arbor-vitae, Maple, Yellow Birch, &c., were much more abundant
where I went.
As for White Birch (i. e. the canoe birch)
not being known there before, I assert that it is almost universally, though not equally,
distributed throughout the forests of Maine; one proof of which is that, though I have had
occasion to make a fire out of doors there about a hundred times, in places wide apart, I
do not remember that I ever failed to find birch bark at hand for kindling. It is the
common kindling-stuff. The evidence for its non-existence in your burnt forest is wholly
untenable. Why, it happens that I never talked with an individual in this town
(Concord)—and I have talked with the most knowing—who was aware that the canoe
birch grew here, though it is not a rare tree with us. It is far more common in Maine. I
find indigenous in this town 44 species of trees (not shrubs), though far the greater part
of the surface is cleared, and I have no doubt that some others have been exterminated.
Probably half as many will, on an average, be found on an equal area in the State of
Maine.
Finally, the birches bear a very fine,
winged seed, and perhaps the most abundantly and regularly of any of our trees, so that a
great part of New-England is dusted over with it in the Winter, and the snow discolored,
though most do not notice it. I think that it would be hard to find, in March, a
considerable area in the woodland of this county perfectly clear of it.
You may infer how seeds get to your burnt
land, and I will leave them to sprout of themselves, without telling what extensive birch
forests (of the smaller species) I see springing up every year from those seeds,
especially where the ground has been burned over or plowed.
I might add, if it had any bearing on the
question, that fires in the woods are commonly very superficial in their effects,
not seriously injuring the roots of plants, and that they reach the depth you speak of
only under peculiar circumstances and in peculiar localities.
Second: You say, "Go there
three days’ journey into a dense forest, cut, burn and clear a small space in June,
burning up the soil itself," and "in a month or two" that spot "will
be covered by a thick, rank growth of fireweed," which "was previously
unknown" there.
If the soil is really burned to the depths
you speak of, I think that you make the fire-weed spring up too soon, though I do not know
how deep its seed may lie, nor how long it may last in the earth. However, supposing that
this which you state is exactly true, still I answer Yes, I do "insist that
this fire-weed (and all other fire-weed of this species) springs uniformly from seeds of
that plant." I suppose you refer to the Erechthites hieracifolia, though the Epilobium
angustifolium, a perennial plant, is also called fire-weed by some. However, these are
not with very peculiar fitness called fire-weeds, for they spring up in the same
manner on new land when it is laid bare by whatever cause hereabouts, as often after a
cutting as after a burning, though I will not deny that the ashes may be a good manure for
them.
Waiving the question of the tenacity of
life of these seeds and their ability to resist fire, I think that I only need to say that
the Erechthites hieracifolia is eminently one of those plants whose downy seeds
fill the air in Autumn, as the old botanists said, "carried away by the wind,"
and, so far as my observation goes, it is always to be found in and around our woodlands;
and if, as you say, it "was previously unknown" in your forest, it was because
your settler did not seek to make acquaintance with it, but only cursed it when it got
into his clearing. They are few and puny in the dense wood, but numerous and rank in the
openings. He that hath eyes let him see. The locality assigned to this plant by Gray is
"moist woods."
Millions of these seeds may be blown along
the very lane in which we are walking without our seeing one of them. One writer has
calculated that the fifth year’s crop from a single seed of a kind of thistle which
he calls Acanthum vulgare, supposing all to grow, would amount to 7,962 trillions
and upward; "a progeny," says he, "more than sufficient to stock not only
the surface of the whole earth, but of all the planets in the solar system, so that no
other vegetable could possibly grow, allowing but the space of one square foot for each
plant." It also spreads extensively by the roots, says this author; but I am still to
be convinced that it spreads by what is called spontaneous generation beside. I know not
how accurate his calculation is; but I know that the fire-weed is a plant somewhat similar
in its fecundity, and I have no doubt that there are seeds enough of it produced, and that
they are widely enough dispersed, to account for all that spring up; and I do not believe
that they were created so abundant and volatile for no purpose.
There are several plants peculiarly fitted
to reclothe the earth when laid bare by whatever cause. Those to which you have referred
are conspicuous among these.
Of course, it depends on who it is who
says that this or that plant was not there before. I should not be surprised if the first
woodchopper whom I met, a herbarium being shown to him, should think that seven-eighths of
the plants common in this neighborhood did not exist here at all. But what of that?
Greeley seems to have thought well enough of Thoreau’s response that he published
both his own letter and the response in the New-York Weekly Tribune on 2 February
1861. Just eleven days later, on 13 February—almost five months after the
lecture—the New England Farmer printed a response to Thoreau’s lecture as
published in the Transactions of the Middlesex Aricultural Society for the Year 1860.
(The New England Farmer was edited by Thoreau’s friend and fellow townsman
Simon Brown, whose personal journal records his attendance at the cattle show; see
"Narrative of Event" above.) Submitted by an otherwise unidentified "R. J.
F.," the response to Thoreau’s address states:
The address of Mr. Thoreau is a very
interesting one, particularly that portion which explains the process of nature, by which
when a decayed pine wood is cut down, oaks and other hard woods may at once take its
place. In other words, how it is that, without the aid of man, a rotation of crops in the
shape of trees takes place. This is done, as he truly says, by the winds, in some cases,
by the birds and by animals in others. The squirrel is a great tree-planter, the oak, the
walnut and the beech are mostly planted by him. They are brought long distances and are
buried in the ground for winter use; some are forgotten or are not wanted and they
vegetate the following spring. He is, however, mistaken in supposing the planting to be
carried on annually of necessity, or that "the oldest seedlings annually die."
The plants come up and throw out from two to six leaves, and continue to do so from year
to year, until pines decay or are removed, and the light and air come to them, when they
at once commence a vigorous growth. I have marked within fifteen years, hundreds of oaks
in their dormant state, and have never lost sight of them. There they are, just as when I
first discovered them. Others I have opened to the light and air, by clearing away the
pines which shadowed them, and they are vigorously taking their places. Providence has
wisely made this provision for the future. These plantations are existing all around us,
with no oaks within a large circuit—they have been all sacrificed years ago, yet the
clearing up of a pine grove will reveal the careful providence of nature. If no oak has ever
grown in a district, none will grow, for want of seed, but once planted and germinated, it
is never lost.
The squirrel is equally efficient in
planting pine seed as the acorn. The cone of a pine contains from thirty to sixty sound
germinating seed. The squirrel, with his sharp teeth, cuts off the little flaps which hold
them and pouches them, carrying them to his retreat, where they are lightly buried. A
common chipmunk will take in his pouches or cheeks more than a hundred seeds at a time.
It is only the pine that acts as a sentry
over the oak, preparing for its future growth by the annual decay of its spikelets. The
birch, to some extent, performs the same office. If you carefuly look through what appears
to be an entire birch cover, you will frequently find the young oaks beneath abiding the
period of its more rapid decay.8
Also in this same issue of the New England Farmer is a detailed summary of
Thoreau’s lecture.
Almost six weeks later still, on 23 March
1861, Greeley published in the New-York Weekly Tribune a letter written on 7
February by one E. G. Waters of Coventryville in Chenango County, New York. The letter is
a response to Thoreau’s own earlier response to Greeley:
Sir: Sixty years ago, when this section
of country was new, and the settlers had commenced clearing away the dense forests, the
fire-weed you speak of in your letter to Mr. Thoreau was extremely annoying to farmers. It
sometimes happened that the Summers were so wet that we could not burn a fallow after it
was chopped, and it had to lay over to the next season, and then, if the season permitted,
it was burned early, and usually a better burn was obtained than when the fallow was
burned the same season the timber was cut. In a few days after the burning, this pest of
fire-weed would spring up, and by logging time, in the Fall, present a dense growth as
high as a man’s head. The down, or furze, from the blossom being very fine, it was
both choking and blinding to work among it, and the next year the grain would sometimes be
so full of it that we had to tie a vail [sic] over the face to thresh and clean it.
Now, was its growth spontaneous or from seed? If from seed, it must have been lying deep
in the earth, for in all cases the deeper the earth was burned the more prolific the
growth of the wood. A year or two since, I examined a plant which had just started, and
found the roots did not go as deep as the land was actually burned. The truth is, the
roots never strike deep; but run on and near the surface of the earth. I suppose it took
its common name of fire-weed from the fact of its growing on new-burnt land. It is seldom,
if ever, seen in old, improved fields. Birch is not the only timber that follows the
clearing and burning of land. Wild Cherry, Poplar, and other trees, will grow where they
were never known to grow before, seed or no seed.
Greeley was to have the last word on the matter; in square brackets below Waters’
letter, Greeley wrote, "We understand Mr. Thoreau to contend, not that seeds of the
Fire-Weed, Birch, &c., are buried so deep in the earth that the fire does not affect
them, but that they are wind-sown over the surface after the burning has taken place.
Of course, our correspondent’s facts do not confute this theory."9
DESCRIPTION OF TOPIC: The very
brief time between Thoreau’s delivery of the lecture and his submission of the
manuscript to Greeley is a fairly clear indication that the lecture and the published
essay were very similar. After the essay was published, Thoreau worked it into his
evolving text of The Dispersion of Seeds. Although Thoreau died before he could
complete this project, Bradley P. Dean has reconstructed the "chapter" from the
extant manuscripts and published it in Faith in a Seed, pp. 23-173.
Notes
1. Louisa Kussin,
"The Concord Farmers Club and Thoreau’s ‘Succession of Forest
Trees,’" Thoreau Society Bulletin, no. 173 (Fall 1985): 1-3. [Back to Text]
2. Quoted from "Notes
& Queries," Thoreau Society Bulletin, no. 91 (Spring 1965): 4. [Back to Text]
3. (Emphasis added.) Levi
Stockbridge, Report from Eighth Annual Report of the Secretary of the Massachusetts
Board of Agriculture (Boston: White, 1861), pp. 276-78; facsimile rpt., Walter
Hesford, "The 1860 Concord Cattle-Show: An Official Account," Thoreau Society
Bulletin, no. 132 (Summer 1975): 6-7. [Back to Text]
4. Quoted from Hubert H.
Hoeltje, "Thoreau as Lecturer," New England Quarterly, 19 (December
1946): 492-93. [Back to Text]
5. Quoted from Hoeltje,
"Thoreau as Lecturer," 493. [Back to Text]
6. Alcott, MS "Diary
for 1860," entry of 20 September, MH (*59M-308). [Back to Text]
7. Quoted from a
transcript at the Thoreau Textual Center, CU-SB; the MS is in the Sewall Collection,
Thoreau Society Archives, MCo. [Back
to Text]
8. R.J.F., "Society
Reports—Succession of Forest Trees," New England Farmer, 13 (February
1861): 89-90; facsimile rpt., Walter Harding, "Another Forgotten Notice of
Thoreau," Thoreau Society Bulletin, no. 143 (Spring 1978): 6. [Back to Text]
9. For further context on
this flurry of letters, see "Henry D. Thoreau and Horace Greeley
Exchange Letters on the ‘Spontaneous Generation of Plants,’" New England
Quarterly, 66 (December 1993): 630-38. [Back to Text] |