But what? We looked in the dictionary; no help
there. We asked questions of older people, and got no help from them.
Finally we went to the old Squire, who repeated the query absently,
"Witches' brooms? Witches' brooms? Why, let me see. Aren't they those
great dense masses of twigs you sometimes see in the tops of fir trees?
It is a kind of tree disease, some say tree cancer. At first they are
green, but they turn dead and dry by the second year, and may kill that
part of the tree. Often they are as large as a bushel basket. I saw one
once fully six feet in diameter, a dry globe of closely packed twigs."
We knew what he meant now, but we had never heard those singular growths
called "witches' brooms" before. Unlike mistletoe, the broom is not a
plant parasite, but a growth from the fir itself, like an oak gall, or a
gnarl on a maple or a yellow birch; but instead of being a solid growth
on the tree trunk, it is a dense, abnormal growth of little twigs on a
small bough of the fir, generally high up in the top.
The next day we went out along the borders of the farm wood lot and cut
the seven firs; then, thinking that there might be a sale for others, we
got enough more to make up a load for our trip to Portland.
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