The Musings of A Simple Country Man
Pictured is Lois Morris standing in front of a large hemlock.
By Hobie Morris
(Brookfield, NY – April 2013) Early January, a cool, steel gray overcast afternoon my wife and I decided to visit a very special old friend. We hadn’t seen it for several years. Living as it does in the woods on a remote southwest facing hillside not easily accessible. On land that has been in my farmer friend Joe’s family for many generations. As a considerate neighbor, I asked Joe’s permission which he gladly gave us.
We parked our old pickup truck next to his large red dairy barn and soon were briskly walking across the windswept stubbled cornfield. In the distance I could see the edge of the woods with many tall trees standing beyond. The view was startlingly beautiful. All around this hilly prominence were layers of distant hills, snowy white patches of open fields and the dark greenish black hues of forest lands. Even in the depth of winter the countryside has its own special loveliness; a quiet restorative peacefulness of incalculable value.
Soon we reached the end of the cornfield, crawled through a barbed wire fence, and paused for a moment so I could look around and “get my bearings.” A four wheeler track led in the general direction I wanted to go.
As we slowly walked down the gently sloping hillside we were dwarfed by a rich variety of towering hardwoods and an occasional green needled hemlock. As a very small scale woodsman I was impressed by the wonderful care that these trees had received over the years.
Lois lightly touched my arm and pointed to a massive dark shape looming in the distance. “Could that be it?” she asked Through the fading, filtered late afternoon light I saw that it was I had the same physical reaction that I had experienced when Joe’s late Father first brought me to this exact spot many years before. Harry was a renowned woodsman, a skilled sawyer – in addition to being a very successful farmer. Like most farmers, he was a very practical man and not known for lavish sentimentality, But I believe in his heart Harry loved this spot and what he brought me up here to see.
The first time I stood in its presence I felt chills all over my body-and it was a hot July day! I stood in awe-my eyes could hardly comprehend the massive size, an awesome arboreal giant that towered far above me. Rising 150 feet or more like a magnificent church spire-soaring far above the tops of surrounding trees. Its branches reaching out like huge, muscular arms above the crown of its neighbors. The wind always seemed to be whistling through its green needles. Truly I was standing next to a colossal forest monarch.
America was in its infancy when out of the shady, moist fertile earth emerged a tiny sliver of plant life. Its early growth was painfully slow-continually competing with other seedlings for life’s essential nourishment. But somehow it survived slowly growing taller and broader.
For a long time it was only an insignificant speck in an endless forest that covered the land. As far as the eye could see and beyond-there were only trees. Soon, however, white settlers from the east began to move into these hills to settle.
Trees were obstacles-to be cut and used and not admired. Somehow this special hemlock survived when most others of its kind were cut down. (Only the thick bark on the lower hemlock’s trunk was used for tanning animal pelts. The rest of the tree was usually discarded).
Can you imagine what magnificent trees our pioneer ancestors must have seen?
Between Waterville and Deansboro off Route 315, for instance, once stood what may have been Oneida County’s largest and oldest tree. Standing on the bluff behind the stone school house at Forge Hollow the white elm could be seen for many miles around and had been an Indian landmark “in the early days.” When it was cut down for safety reasons in late l88l, it measured seven feet across the stump, 24 foot around, and was 180 feet high. Because it had seemingly always been that huge, in the memories of the oldest citizens, one observer believed “its existence antedates the discovery of the continent by Columbus.”
Even today in our area there are many very historic and ancient trees, some are State and National Large Tree record holders. This area has been truly blessed by their presence.
In front of the Waterville Library is a magnificent living “wine glass” elm tree that at breast height has a circumference of 117 inches and soars well over 100 feet or more into the air. (The same kind of trees that in my youth once stood like military sentries on both sides of Utica’s historic Genesee Street. Some claim their branches could almost touch each other across this expansive street).
In our forest are two 200 year o1d huge hard maples whose crowns are clearly visible from a small plane flying over the surrounding trees.
Man is so deeply indebted in so many vital ways to trees, including our climate, the environment, giving us the oxygen we need to breathe. A mature beech tree provides enough oxygen for three people! Trees provide wood for homes and are homes themselves. An oak tree is a miniature ecosystem with 300 species of insects, birds and animals either living in it or depending upon it for food. Tree roots bind the soil; their bark makes indispensable medicines. The list goes on and on.
How foolish modern man is denuding the landscape of these essential “life givers.” We denude at our peril. We must do better for our trees and more and more people are working in many different venues to this noble and vital end.
After my first visit to stand in the presence of this mighty hemlock I have thought often of this forest giant. That it survived nearly 200 years was indeed a miracle. A few years ago a destructive wind tore through the area-breaking and uprooting trees in its wake. How many other times had powerful winds shaken its massive trunk to its very roots? Generations, nations, civilizations have come and gone but it lived on.
When my wife and I approached our old friend recently tears came to my eyes. The venerable old monster still stood but I could see by its brown needles that it no longer. We sadly, slowly walked back to our pickup. Darkness was settling over the landscape.
But I wasn’t sad for very long because I knew that in the gentle warmth and bright sunshine of spring countless new tree seedlings will emerge from the rich soil beneath my friend’s ancient, now barren, limbs. In death new life and hope inevitably blossoms and the cycle continues as a new generation takes up the challenges of life.
Hobie Morris is a Brookfield resident and a simple country man.