Thoreau surveys a woodlot for Thomas Brooks (A Catalog of Thoreau’s Surveys in the Concord Free Public Library, 5; Henry David Thoreau papers. Special Collections, Concord (Mass.) Free Public Library).
Concord, Mass. Thoreau writes in his journal:
A.M.—Surveying a blueberry and maple swamp belonging to Thomas Brooks in the northeast part of Lincoln, burned over in the fall of ’57. The fire spread across a ditch about four feet wide, catching the dry grass. The maples are killed part way or entirely round, near the ground, as you find on cutting the bark, being most protected on the inside of a clump toward each other, but less and less as you try higher up. Yet, generally, they have leaved out. Will they, when thus girdled, live more than one year? The effect on the alders has been that the bark for a foot or two next the ground is now in loose curls turned back or outward . . .
P.M.—Surveying, for Warner, wood bought of John Brown near Concord line . . .
