Thank you very much!

Just don't show this video to dollar general. 🤣

You’re entirely welcome, and thank you for watching!

It's easier to estimate the age of some tree species than others by visible characteristics (bark, etc), but black cherry trees are not easy to age by outward appearances. The best way to determine their age is to take a core sample from the trunk, using a tool called an increment borer, which is a hollow tube that is cranked into the tree, to its center. It will leave a pencil-diameter hole in the trunk, after the small dowel-like sample is extracted; the tree will heal the hole shut. The core sample is glued to a wooden mounting strip, then sanded to make the tree's annual rings visible and countable, which reveals the tree's age. But, if one of the trees has fallen, as you said, then a clean cut can be made across the stump (or its log) and the rings could be counted there.

As listed in the ending credits, the tune is “Folk Tap Harp” by Unicorn Heads.

As Tom Wessels explained in the film, the Merino “sheep fever” craze in New England collapsed in the mid-1800’s. Regarding the stone walls… if you can’t believe that individual farms built them, then who would you propose did? And for what reason?

@NewEnglandForests l really don't know. I can't see the natives of the Woodlands era building them or to what purpose. I have read that there are many stone structures throughout New England that are thought to have been built by woodland indians and cultures before them for ceremonial reasons. Growing up in the 1950s and 1960,and playing in the woods and fields I would follow these walls for miles and miles. Later in my journeys through the area I would find them everywhere.It seemed like you couldn't walk 100 feet without running into them. Teachers would tell us that early farmers built them but the total length must be in the thousands of miles and the size of many of the rocks just didn't seem like farmers would do all of this work and still have time to farm the land. I was not aware of the large sheep industries in the 19 century and if the walls were built to pen the sheep that would make sense. Those early pioneers must have spent many hours lugging those heavy boulders around .

I imagine that’s one reason they had a lot of children… they needed laborers! When you think about it, there really wasn’t anyone else who would have any reason or motivation to stack rocks into thousands of miles of walls. The rocks wouldn’t even have been so accessible and evident until the land was cleared of forest for pastures and crop fields. The only people who did that were the farmers of the 18th and 19th centuries.

In New England (and elsewhere), the tree species that arise on open land is variable. Not all of that originally cleared land was colonized by white pine, but a lot of it was. It’s a question of what seed source is nearby, as well as a number of other factors. In some years, pines will produce great quantities of seed, and may quickly colonize suitable open sites. In other years, hardwood species may. Or, a mix of species may take hold. So when a piece of open land was abandoned, what trees then grew there was a matter of chance.

Not sure which tree you’re referring to, but assume it’s the hemlock at 03:44. Very unlikely it’s a trail marker as many people like to think. I’ts not old enough, for one thing. Bent tree trail markers are not commonly found here, especially since central New England was largely cleared for agricultural use. -Ray

(🤫 Shhhhhh…. trying to shame it into straightening up and becoming a proud tree.)

They mention it in another film they have called "The Lost Forests of New England: Eastern Old Growth" about 2m30sec into the video

They won't perish, but they may be forever changed, and will be in a biologically diminished condition for a long, long time. You may be delighted by that thought, but the degradation of natural systems that's going on is global. The joke is on all of us.

Yes, and we also didn't mention tree ferns, volcanism, and the role of microbes. Oh, and then what about continental drift?

@@NewEnglandForests This feels like sarcasm, but also a legit response. Either way, it's funny. I didn't think a video like this would illicit passive agressive comments en masse, but here we are

Terrible take. Were First Nation Peoples in Russia, Africa, South and Central America, Australia, Western Europe, and Asia?