They planted earthworms in the soil. They found that woodlands which comprise a natural community of a great variety of living things was more productive and gave less trouble than artificial plantings. Some of the most useful, valuable and interesting animals of our American woodlands are missing when there are no trees with dead limbs or hollow trunks. Honey bees and other bees, wasps, the hibernating butterflies, moths, certain mosquitoes, spiders, snails, tree frog, and many other kinds of insects, lower animals and fungi are found in such places. A good way to learn what lives in such trees is by sauntering through the woods in winter.
Squirrels prefer the holes made when a small limb is broken off and decays back into the trunk.
Woodpeckers drill holes in dead limbs and excavate a nest cavity which is frequently used the next year by other kinds of birds. One day we spied some chunks of honey comb at the foot of a tall red oak in the woods back of Punkin Knob. Deer mice are fond of honey and sometimes rob a hive in midwinter. Sure enough, on the next balmy sunny day there were bees streaming in and out of a hole up on the trunk of that tree. Not far from there is a hollow linden where possums and a family of flying squirrels have their dens.