Mystery Pines of Granere

There are about six rows of red pines in the old residential section of Granere, the abandoned town site described in the last post. On one hand, it's pretty clear that these tattered pines didn't just sprout in perfect rows. Someone planted them. On the other hand, they don't look more than 60 years old, and Granere has been unoccupied for 107 years.

So the question is: Did the Forest Service plant these trees in an attempt to reclaim the gaping clearing at Granere? (And for that matter, why is the town site still mostly treeless after all these years?) The CCC did have a penchant for planting these gangly red pines back in the 30s, a tradition that the Forest Service continued into the 60s.

Or are these trees actually remnants from the days when the town was occupied? As noted in a long-ago post, our hardy ancestors planted pines around their homes as a windbreak and in order to prevent snowdrifts from piling up against their doors and windows. I remember reading once that some evergreens are often older than they appear because the loss of needles on their lower branches causes them to subsist in a sort of malnourished state.

Speaking of suffering trees, I've been getting creeped out by all the dead trees that line the roads, especially the interstate highways. Evergreens are most affected, with dead orange needles; the branches closest to the roadway are always the worst. But deciduous trees are also dying, their gaunt, bare branches clutching at the sky like dead hands. Turns out it's the salt that we use on the roads in the winter. Trees hate salt. So there's a "catch 22." Bad winters are good for trees because they help to kill off invasive species, but the worse the winter weather, the more salt we put on the roads, killing off more trees.