Yes, a 13-inch Live Oak with a very old hack scar on its bark that falls upon a line run in 1846. The scar faces toward a corner about 213 varas (592 ft.) to the southwest of the tree and so appears to have been marked as a line tree.
Live Oak No. 1251 (Far)
Live Oak No. 1251 (Near)
Oh, the finds from 2014?
This juvenile specimen of a Greater Roadrunner sitting on top of a gate post as I drove past.
And this hummingbird going after the Bee Brush (Aloysia gratissima) in flower after the recent rains.
So you think that tiny little tree is 150+ years old??? Not me dude, not around here... No way.
There are "scrub" varieties of trees that grow slower and smaller than their "normal" cousins.
That tree could be that old, especially in Texas.
> So you think that tiny little tree is 150+ years old?
Yes. Growth rates of 16 years per inch of diameter for live oaks (Quercus virginiana) with marks cut into them are quite typical in unirrigated upland locations in Central Texas. I've seen bearing trees that were marked at known dates and show growth rates of less than 20 years per inch after marking.
These are trees that grow in quite shallow, rocky soil in an area that gets less than 30 inches of rain annually on average.
The effect of a hack is to partially girdle the tree. In this case, the scar is now about 11 inches long, roughly 1/4 of the tree's diameter. It would have cut through about 1/4 of the tree's cambium layer when the mark was made.
Beep, Beep!
-JD-
So I have to ask, are you going to core the tree in an attempt to disprove your assumption? In other words determine if the tree was alive and large enough to be blazed at the time of the survey?
By the way - it looks like a guy would leave a little bit of himself behind, each time he visited that country i.e. blood, sweat, tears...maybe a piece of his shirt.
I found a set of bearing trees (white oak) that were approx. 7" in diameter - scribed in the 1880's. How did I know they were actual bearing trees rather than scars from past searches...they were hacked open to reveal the "BT" scribing.
The scar was very faint, but it corresponded with a mound of rock located in a boulder field with many mounds of rocks. I will always remember that find. We were the first surveyors to document finding the corner since it was originally set.
> So I have to ask, are you going to core the tree in an attempt to disprove your assumption? In other words determine if the tree was alive and large enough to be blazed at the time of the survey?
Probably not. I have a hard enough time counting annual rings on live oak specimens that have been cut let alone fragmentary core borings. I've measured so many 19th century live oak bearing trees in that area, growing in quite similar conditions, that a growth rate of around 16 years per inch is really not in question.
I have probably examined over three hundred live oaks in all in the vicinity of various lines of surveys run in that area in 1846 and 1847 and have seen exactly one other hack like that one. The hack scar itself is quite rare and being within about a vara of a line between two recovered corners from the 1846 survey pretty much cinches the deal.
The real importance of that hack is interpretive. There is a conflict between two surveys, one made in 1846 and one supposedly adjacent to it made in 1847. That hack shows which line was really run and which was almost certainly not, the conflicting corner of the later survey having most likely been stubbed in from another direction.
1 vara - definitely within an axe handle length - especially in Texas.
I have found mesquites from a survey in 1900 that are 6"-8" diameter, with the markings visible. Why would I core it, when it fits location and description?
> I have found mesquites from a survey in 1900 that are 6"-8" diameter, with the markings visible. Why would I core it, when it fits location and description?
Obviously it depends on the location, situation, amount of reliance and available supporting evidence. Much of this falls to a surveyor's judgment based upon his level of experience.
What would you do if the scarred trees didn't fit the location and description, and had little supporting evidence? Sometimes it is easier to disprove evidence than it is to prove it.
When I was working in the woods, before a scarred tree could be utilized to restore an obliterated corner, it had to be proved to be associated with the survey. This was usually done with an axe or chain saw. Otherwise the scar(s) could be the result of a past search, animals, falling trees, rolling rocks, timber cruisers, ect. There were many times that we were sure a tree would have scribing, only to find it was a natural scar.
I know for a fact that there are many single proportioned corners out there that didn't get the attention they deserved. Searching for original GLO corners in the woods is almost an art and is getting increasingly more difficult as time goes by.
In the case above, I was bringing up tree coring because of a past discussion where everyone was questioning the age of the trees Keith was honoring, which led to a discussion about Dendrology.