Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-10-02
NOTABLE TREES.
some Of the Trees Which Adorn Historic
New England.

N0.e 0seS
Some of the Trees Which Adorn Historic
New England.
Dedham has probably one Of the old
est and largest white oaks to be found
in New England. 1t stands on the
Avery Place, and was doubtless stand
ing there when the town was organized
two hundred and fifty years ago, and
was a large old tree in the beginning
OF the present century. At the time of
the building of the frigate Constitu-
ton, which figured so prominently
during the war of 1872, the then owner
was offered one hundred dollars in
gold for the trunk and knees Of this
noble old tree. He thought it over for
awhile, and replied that one hundred
dollars was a great deal of money, but
the tree shaded his home in summer,
and had become a thing to be loved by
the entire family, and he should never
sell it so long as he could live without
the money it would bring. And so the
old tree is standing to-day. though its
spread of branches has been growing
less for some years past. We recently
laid a tape-line around it as high as one
could conveniently reach, and found it
fifteen feet in circumference; at the
surface of the ground it is over twenty
II feet in circumference, and is seven
teen feet and ten inches at two and a
half feet. Its longest limbs reach out
over a radius of fifty feet.
In the same town, and within sight
of the upper branches of the old Avery
oak. is standing an American elm that
is remarkable, both for its size and for
its beauty of form. Colonel Eli
phalet Stone, near whose resi-
dence it stands, said of it
many years ago: ''There is the idol of
my life. have tried to have it photo
graphed and painted, but it is of no
use; it can't be done. Other trees
more stiff and trim can be copied by
the artist, but they all fail when they
take hold of that. 1t would be my de-
light to have it transferred to canvas
or plate, but that tree keeps up a system
attic warfare against having a true
copy attested by anybody but God
himself" Mr.. Samuel Cox, of Ded-
ham, wrote of the tree some fifteen
years ago: ITO look at this tree for a
moment, with its graceful, curving
boughs, and then to glance at the finest
of u common kinds, is a step down.
ward, as if from the heights of SUBJ
Unity to the level of ordinary life"
The tree is not as remarkable for the
size of its trunk, which measures be-
tween fourteen and fifteen feet in cir
conference at five feet from the ground,
as for it's spread of branches and SYM
metrical form.
Almost overshadowing the Unionville
Depot in Franklin is an elm of similar
character, remarkable for its perfect
form and far reaching, graceful spray,
its outline at times being as uniform as
though it had recently passed under the
hands of the landscape-gardener's
pruning-shears. In the center of the
town Of Holliston are two very large
and very tall elms girthing from eight
cen to over twenty feet in circumfer-
ence at the height of Il mans arms,
and standing in line by the roadside so
that to those approaching in either di-
~rection they present the appearance OF
a single tree. Like the great trees Of
California, the size of these elms can not
be takenin at first glance, but they grow
upon ones mind as n gazes long
upon them and lets the eye wander
among the innumerable branches into
which the great trunks divide and re-
divide. Perhaps the handsomest elm
on the main street in Glastonbury,
Conn.,, particularly handsome because
Of the rich leaf growth that completely
hides every foot of the bark of the
trunk and all it's spreading branches,
like ivy upon some of the great walls
in u cities.
Mr.. P. NJ. Augur, in the last Con-
necticut State Agricultural Report,
makes mention of an elm in Wethers-
field that was planted in the year 1749
by John Smith, who, when riding horse
back to a pasture for his cattle some
three miles away, saw this vigorous
young tree while looking for a riding
whip. and getting off his horse. pulled
it up and carried it home and set it out
where it now stands a living monument
to his memory. Mr.. Henry Howe, Of
New Haven, a student of New Eng
lands noted trees, wrote MI. Augur in
October, 1884, that $50 far as / know
this is the bully elm of the United
States" The dimensions are twenty
two feet five inches at three feet three
inches from the ground, or following
the depressions Of the trunk, twenty
five feet three inches. The circum.
ference where the tree enters the
ground is tifty-five feet six inches; the
circumference of n Of its branches,
sixteen feet eight inches; another eleven
feet six inches; and three othe1
branches eleven feet, ten feet three
inches and eight feet seven inches, res
pectively, and with a spread of branches
of one hundred and fifty-two feet
-Four trees of equal size planted in 9
square, SO the inner branches would
touch, would occupy two acres and six
teen rods of ground.-Bostow Times.
Sho TunhIoH-