Natural history tells tale of human experiences

In winter it’s easy to distinguish between comfort and discomfort. Cold temperatures have a way of working their way into our bones, producing an aching that may be physical, emotional or both. Just looking out the window when the thermometer registers below zero is enough to send a chill shivering through the skin and can make one want to follow the cat’s lead and curl up on the warm bricks under the wood stove.

This said, the cold weather can’t keep away inspirations of summer’s gardens, can it? Seed and plant catalogs keep the imagination busy this time of year dreaming about that special place in our yard that keeps us emotionally cozy in summer.

Our sense of place extends out from our home into our yard. Does it extend even farther out into the landscape? Out into the rolling hills of our state, New England, the Maritimes and the regions beyond?

In 1995, Elliott West, a distinguished professor of history at the University of Arkansas, wrote a collection of essays on the Central Plains of the United States titled “Way to the West.” He noted that a “place” must have three elements. The physical setting, with its unique topology, soil and climate; a sense of and artifacts of human history – all the things humans have done there; and finally, what that setting and that history have meant to the people who have lived in that place.

West says, “A place is partly its collective human memory, its people’s awareness that much has happened there.”

About our own homes and yards, we possess a collective intelligence of relatively recent human events that give our homes and regions a sense of place. What about the more distant past, say, in the early years of European settlement on this continent?

In an exciting discipline that blends arboriculture and history, University of Arkansas researchers study tree rings to create a picture of past climates. They blend this information with knowledge gleaned from the diaries and journals of people to enrich the stories of our history.

Have you ever counted the rings on a stump to determine the age of the tree that was cut there? The science of dendrochronology revolves around the age of trees. Using what’s called an increment borer, the dendrochronologist drills core samples from living trees and by counting the inner rings may accurately judge the age of a tree.

For the researchers, tree rings not only indicate a tree’s age, they provide a narrative of the growing seasons endured by the tree. In general, deeper rings indicate lush growing seasons, thinner rings indicate drought periods. All in all, the dendrologists’ findings provide insights into some of today’s most pressing environmental questions and are changing the way historians look at past events.

Using dendrochronology, researchers discovered that the first colonists from Europe arrived during one of the worst droughts in the continent’s history. While the Colonial period has been researched from the historian’s perspective as much as any era in American history, the tree ring research shed new light on the entire era.

“The information about drought during the early colonization of Jamestown and Roanoke was remarkable and unexpected,” said West. “This drought would not have appeared in the written record, because the English hadn’t been around long enough to determine what was normal.”

As colonies established and the population grew, people migrated west across the United States. Their journeys were often grueling, difficult and dirty. Nonetheless, many of them kept journals and wrote detailed letters to the folks “back East.” Often, these journals contained information about the weather.

“They were out there, exposed on the plains. The weather was one thing they would often make a note of,” West said. Yet, West cautioned, the people who crossed the plains likely had no sense of what “normal” plains weather should be like. For instance, a farmer from the East Coast might find the plains extremely dry when the weather was normal for that time of year.

“They’ll say things like, ‘There’s not a spot of shade,’ or ‘It’s raining like scissors’ or ‘We had to march four miles off the road to find pasture,'” West said. Taking note of the pioneers’ perspective, dendrochronologists may use their letters, diaries and journals to piece together a richer understanding of the environment decades ago.

West said, “We’re beginning to realize that it’s arduous, vigorous work to compile. But when you put it together, there’s a mosaic of climate over time.”

West’s research in the Midwest has remarkable implications even for those of us up here in the frigid North. His interesting research adds a complex and fascinating facet of “culture” to the science of arboriculture, doesn’t it? It’s a wondrous thing to think that the largest trees in our woods here in Maine might harbor hidden clues to the lives of the people who knew this great place long before us.

Diana George Chapin is the NEWS garden columnist. Send horticulture questions to Gardening Questions, 512 North Ridge Road, Montville 04941 or e-mail dianagc@midcoast.com. Selected questions will be answered in future columns. Include name, address and telephone number.