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1Gilpin, in his account of the forest borderers of England, says that "the encroachments of trespassers, and the houses
2and fences thus raised on the borders of the forest," were "considered as great nuisances by the old forest law, and
3were severely punished under the name of purprestures, as tending ad terrorem ferarum--ad nocumentum forestæ, &c.," to
4the frightening of the game and the detriment of the forest. But I was interested in the preservation of the venison and
5the vert more than the hunters or woodchoppers, and as much as though I had been the Lord Warden himself; and if any
6part was burned, though I burned it myself by accident, I grieved with a grief that lasted longer and was more
7inconsolable than that of the proprietors; nay, I grieved when it was cut down by the proprietors themselves. I would
8that our farmers when they cut down a forest felt some of that awe which the old Romans did when they came to thin, or
9let in the light to, a consecrated grove (lucum conlucare), that is, would believe that it is sacred to some god. The
10Roman made an expiatory offering, and prayed, Whatever god or goddess thou art to whom this grove is sacred, be
11propitious to me, my family, and children, &c. It is remarkable what a value is still put upon wood even in this age and
12in this new country, a value more permanent and universal than that of gold. After all our discoveries and inventions no
13man will go by a pile of wood. It is as precious to us as it was to our Saxon and Norman ancestors. If they made their
14bows of it, we make our gun-stocks of it. Michaux, more than thirty years ago, says that the price of wood for fuel in
15New York and Philadelphia "nearly equals, and sometimes exceeds, that of the best wood in Paris, though this immense
16capital annually requires more than three hundred thousand cords, and is surrounded to the distance of three hundred
17miles by cultivated plains." In this town the price of wood rises almost steadily, and the only question is, how much
18higher it is to be this year than it was the last. Mechanics and tradesmen who come in person to the forest on no other
19errand, are sure to attend the wood auction, and even pay a high price for the privilege of gleaning after the
20woodchopper. It is now many years that men have resorted to the forest for fuel and the materials of the arts; the New
21Englander and the New Hollander, the Parisian and the Celt, the farmer and Robinhood, Goody Blake and Harry Gill, in
22most parts of the world the prince and the peasant, the scholar and the savage, equally require still a few sticks from
23the forest to warm them and cook their food. Neither could I do without them. Every man looks at his wood-pile with a
24kind of affection. I love to have mine before my window, and the more chips the better to remind me of my pleasing work.
25I had an old axe which nobody claimed, with which by spells in winter days, on the sunny side of the house, I played
26about the stumps which I had got out of my bean-field. As my driver prophesied when I was ploughing, they warmed me
27twice, once while I was splitting them, and again when they were on the fire, so that no fuel could give out more heat.
28As for the axe, I was advised to get the village blacksmith to "jump" it; but I jumped him, and, putting a hickory helve
29from the woods into it, made it do. If it was dull, it was at least hung true. A few pieces of fat pine were a great
30treasure. It is interesting to remember how much of this food for fire is still concealed in the bowels of the earth. In
31previous years I had often gone "prospecting" over some bare hill-side, where a pitch-pine wood had formerly stood, and
32got out the fat pine roots. They are almost indestructible. Stumps thirty or forty years old, at least, will still be
33sound at the core, though the sapwood has all become vegetable mould, as appears by the scales of the thick bark forming
34a ring level with the earth four or five inches distant from the heart. With axe and shovel you explore this mine, and
35follow the marrowy store, yellow as beef tallow, or as if you had struck on a vein of gold, deep into the earth. But
36commonly I kindled my fire with the dry leaves of the forest, which I had stored up in my shed before the snow came.
37Green hickory finely split makes the woodchopper's kindlings, when he has a camp in the woods. Once in a while I got a
38little of this. When the villagers were lighting their fires beyond the horizon, I too gave notice to the various wild
39inhabitants of Walden vale, by a smoky streamer from my chimney, that I was awake.-- Light-winged Smoke, Icarian bird,
40Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight, Lark without song, and messenger of dawn, Circling above the hamlets as thy
41nest; Or else, departing dream, and shadowy form Of midnight vision, gathering up thy skirts; By night star-veiling, and
42by day Darkening the light and blotting out the sun; Go thou my incense upward from this hearth, And ask the gods to
43pardon this clear flame. Hard green wood just cut, though I used but little of that, answered my purpose better than any
44other. I sometimes left a good fire when I went to take a walk in a winter afternoon; and when I returned, three or four
45hours afterward, it would be still alive and glowing. My house was not empty though I was gone. It was as if I had left
46a cheerful housekeeper behind. It was I and Fire that lived there; and commonly my housekeeper proved trustworthy. One
47day, however, as I was splitting wood, I thought that I would just look in at the window and see if the house was not on
48fire; it was the only time I remember to have been particularly anxious on this score; so I looked and saw that a spark
49had caught my bed, and I went in and extinguished it when it had burned a place as big as my hand. But my house occupied
50so sunny and sheltered a position, and its roof was so low, that I could afford to let the fire go out in the middle of
51almost any winter day. The moles nested in my cellar, nibbling every third potato, and making a snug bed even there of
52some hair left after plastering and of brown paper; for even the wildest animals love comfort and warmth as well as man,
53and they survive the winter only because they are so careful to secure them. Some of my friends spoke as if I was coming
54to the woods on purpose to freeze myself. The animal merely makes a bed, which he warms with his body, in a sheltered
55place; but man, having discovered fire, boxes up some air in a spacious apartment, and warms that, instead of robbing
56himself, makes that his bed, in which he can move about divested of more cumbrous clothing, maintain a kind of summer in
57the midst of winter, and by means of windows even admit the light, and with a lamp lengthen out the day. Thus he goes a
58step or two beyond instinct, and saves a little time for the fine arts. Though, when I had been exposed to the rudest
59blasts a long time, my whole body began to grow torpid, when I reached the genial atmosphere of my house I soon
60recovered my faculties and prolonged my life. But the most luxuriously housed has little to boast of in this respect,
61nor need we trouble ourselves to speculate how the human race may be at last destroyed. It would be easy to cut their
62threads any time with a little sharper blast from the north. We go on dating from Cold Fridays and Great Snows; but a
63little colder Friday, or greater snow, would put a period to man's existence on the globe.
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