The bark of these nine apple trees had not been entirely girdled, but in the white rings there was left a band of bark. At the juncture of these bands with the bark warts grew; but though the trees were badly injured, still they survived. All the rest were lost, save that below the girdled place little sprouts came up; but they were wild.
The bark on trees is the same as the veins in man; the blood flows through a man's veins, and through the bark the sap flows over the tree and provides it with branches, leaves, and flowers. The whole inside of a tree may be removed, as often happens with old willows, and if only the bark is alive, the tree will live; but if the bark is destroyed, the tree is destroyed. If a man's veins are cut, the man dies: in the first place, because the blood runs out of them; and in the second place, because then the blood cannot be distributed over the body.
And in the same way the birch tree perishes when children make a hole in it to drink the sap; all the sap runs out.
And in the same way my apple trees perished because the mice entirely girdled the bark so that there was no way for the sap from the roots to reach the branches, the leaves, and the blossoms.
CHAPTER II
THE OLD POPLAR
Our park had been neglected for five years. I engaged workmen with axes and shovels, and I myself began to work with them in my park. We cut down and lopped off dead and wild growths and superfluous thickets and trees.
More abundantly and luxuriantly than anything else had grown the poplar and bird cherry. The poplar starts from roots, and it is impossible to pull it up; but you have to cut the roots out of the ground.
