Morning journal and courier., 1883-12-18
NEW RAVENS ELMS AND GREEN. Descriptians. Historical Items and An ecdOtes of Persons and Things Con-
 nected Herewith.
BY HENRY HOWE.

tCOPyElglteQ looo Dy d6nry hOWSl
 IN ABOUT THIRTY cHAPTERs-cHAPTER XVII. Famous Trees of tie World-The Sacred Benyan of India-The wonderFuI Rata, New Zealand-The Chestnut of a Hundred Horses, on Mount EtnR-The Dragon Tree of OrOtava oM the Peak of TeneriRs-The Night of Sadness in MeKicO-The Big Apple CT Cheshire, Conn.
 This is our last chapter on trees and we will notice in it some of the most famous
 trees on the globe. The sacred banyan of
 India shades>a larger space than any other
 tree There is one on the banks of the Nee
 budda which measures two thousand feet, or
 over 8 third of a mile, around it's principal
 stems, and has growing under it a number of fruit trees. In the march of an army 1t has
 been known to shelter seven thousand per
 sons. The banyan sends out shoots from it's
 branches which, falling to the ground, take root there and in time become large stems. It is therefore questionable among natural
 ists whether the banyan is to be regarded as one or many trees, being in this respect like single grapevine which covers an entire
 island off the coast of Carolina its branches taking root in many places and thus forming, as it were new vines with food support in- dependent of the parent root.
 New Zealand, .'the Great Britain of the Pacific,'' with one of the most delightful climates on the globe, has some remarkable trees, and the charm of it's forests is spoken of as indescribable. Unlike forests in other countries, it's evergreens are intermingled with other trees Among these Is the giant Kauri, toughest of pines, which sometimes attains girth of forty feet and then rises to height of about one hundred feet with a nearly equal diameter and without single branch. The natives from 8 single tree were accustomed to construct war canoe, capable of carrying Q hundred men on distant ex- petition through ths boisterous seas sur rounding their two islands. As they knew not the use of iron, with rude and blunt stones they felled the tough monster, and in process of tine, at en expense of labor, per severance and ingenuity, perfectly wonderful to those who knew what 1t really was thus produced, carved, painted and inlaid a mas terpiecs of art and an object of beauty. The most remarkable of all the New Zealand trees is the wonderful rata, which sometimes kills even the giant Kauri, description of which we copy from Hewitt: ''The stranger in the forest sees slender creeping plant op the ground, more resembling running moss or weed than anything. It is the infant rata seeking tree up which to climb. Still 1t cresps onward till finding tree, when up it goes rapidly. It incloses it on all sides. Still ascending 1t reaches the loftiest summit. It throws out head which smothers the native head of the tree, and the once wiry threads swelling into thick stems. all unite together, utterly kill, destroy the usurped trunk up which they have climbed and becomes 8 tree. It assumes a massive trunk, solid as lead, and admirable for shipbuildiag, whilst it's mag nifeent head, towering over the forest, catches the eye everywhere with it's blaze of
 scarlet dowers.''
 Professor Brewer has kindly supplied us
 xr1kl kL,,& &1I1 oe orl-
 brated trees:
 One of the most famous trees of Europe, and certainly the largest in girth, is the
 chestnut on the slopes of Mount Etna,
 known as s'the Chestnut of a Hundred
 Horses, :" from the statement that hundred
 mounted horsemen had rested at once be-
 meath it's branches. Nearly century ago,
 when measured by Count Borcb, it had
 circumference of 19O fest. It is smaller
 now, the hollow and gnarled old trunk hav-
 ing suffered much from fire. The trunk is
 of such shape that some observers claim
 that it is not single tree, but the fusion to-
 gether of several original trunks The tree
 at last accounts was in great decrepitude.
 The diameter of the body of this the largest
 tree known on the globe, is just about equal
 to the width of Chapel street.
 The famous Dragon Tree of Oretava,"
 on the slope of the peak of TeDeriffe, which
 was destroyed by storm about fifteen years
 since, was supposed by some naturalists to
 have attained the age of six thousand years,
 and to have been the oldest tree on the face
 of the earth. When Spanish authority was
 established there in 1493 it was apparently
 as large as it was three hundred years later.
 It was hollow and then ''AloDzo del Lugo
 and his conquistadsres turned its hollow
 trunk into 8 chapel for holy mass, as it had
 served Druidical purposes among the native tribes for ages before The species belongs
 to the Endogens, and the old part dies as the
 new part grows so part alive in the present century was alive a century before.
 The tree was very unlike OUT trees in ap- pearance. The leaves are ineonspicuous aud
 sharp, like small bayonets in tufts at the ends of long, naked, very numerous branch es which formed tangled growth. The trunk was hollow, As feet six inches in girth near the ground and rapidly tapering to 23 feet 8 inches at IA l feet, where the branches spring out. It was sadly injured by storm in 18l9 later was mutilated by travellers, and finally fell about 1867 or 1968." One of the noted historical trees on this continent is in Mexico, and is to all readers of Prescott especially interesting. It is thus described by traveller: At little place called La Cuba, two miles from the city of Mexico is 8 famous tree named Noche Trists 1 or ''the Night of Sadness, D so called because, according to tradition, under its branches | Cortes gathered the little remnant of his he- roic band on the sad night he was attacked ! by the Aztecs and driven from the city. It l is cypress that grows to an immense size in Mexico. It Is more than a thousand years old and about thirty feet in girth at it's base, l and gnarled and twisted in 8 wonderful way. 1 At twenty feet it divides into two immense l trunks. One of these has been burnt out, ] but it's lesser trunk will probably live for | ages. The Mexican government has recent | Iy put around it as protection a handsome
 stone and iron fence.
 The Waterbury American gives us this &C., | count of an enormous apple tree still stand l ing in Cheshire On the land of Delos ! Hotchkiss, of Cheshire, Conn.,, is an apple ! tree that is said to be the last of aD orchard set out by the first settlers in that neighbor- hood, and which is reckoned to be 1S6 years | old Mir. Hotehkiss, who is in his eighty | second year, has known and owned it for nearly half century, and when he was a l boy he told the writer that he heard his grandmother say that while in her early girl f hood she used to play under it's then broad and sheltering branches The body of the | tree is four feet in diameter up to point | where the limbs branch, of which there are five main branches, each of which is nearly | two feet in diameter. Its height is sixty l feet, and from it's outermost branches apples
 falling perpendieularly lie upon ths ground | six rods apart. Mr. Hotchkiss informed me that he had picked up and measured 125 | bushels of good, sound apples for one year 's produce of this tree, and he estimates 1t has borne from 10000 to 12,O00 bushels up to this date.
 We here close our tree series. Our next will begin those upon the Green, so bidding farewell to leaves we will try to find what [ IL SS