Sharp County record., 1891-05-14
FOREST PATRlARCHS.
Trees Whose Ages Number Thousands OF
Years.

Years.
The age of trees can be determined
with indubitable accuracy. We have
but to cut out cross sections of their
trunks, and by counting the concentric
layers we obtain natures unerring testi-
mony to the number Of years that trees
have lived. The data, therefore, relat-
ing to arboreal longevity are peculiarly
interesting.
Take the linden trees, for instance.
One Of these is still standing at the
village of Villars-en-Moing, near the
town of MOrat. This was noted tree at
the time of the battle between the Swiss
and Charles the Bold, in 1876, and the
measurements made by experts show
that it was even then five hundred years
old. Another linden tree at Neustadt,
in Wurtemberg, can be proved by ex-
tant documents to have been considered
noteworthy in A. D. 1926, but botanists
are able to prove that its age exceeds
eight centuries There is a chestnut
tree at Tamworth, in England. which
was known as landmark when
King Stephen ascended the throne
in 1885. 1t is fifty-two feet in
circumference five feet from the
ground, and it must, so it is computed,
long since have celebrated its
thousandth anniversary. There, again,
is the so-called Parliament Oak" in
Clipstone park, England, which derives
its name from a parliament held under
it by Edwand l., in 1890. This tree,
however, is a youngster, compared to
the "COwthorpe Oak" in Yorkshire,
which measures seventy-eight feet in
circumference near The ground, and
which has an estimated age nearly CO.
eval with the Christian era. There is a
still older oak near Saintes, in France,
for this has a girth near the ground of
nearly ninetyfour feet From the CEN
ter of this tree to the circumference
have been counted some two thousand
concentric annual rings which makes
it about two thousand years old. This
is, perhaps, the patriarch of the forests
of all Europe. There is, however, a
cypress at SOnima, in Lombardy, as to
which botanists of high authority are
inclined to credit the local tradition
that it was in existence in the time of
Julius Caesar.
The yews are also long-lived trees.
There are some famous specimens at
Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire, which,
according to De Candolle's rule for
measurement, should be one thousand
three hundred years old The "Anker-
nyke Yew," near Staines, in sight of
which the Magma Charta was signed,
and beneath whose shade Henry VIII.
first looked in the eyes of Anne Boleyn,
has been inspected by experts and pro-
nounced one thousand one hundred and
fifty years old, which is about the age
that tradition assigns to it. There is a
still more anciet Yew in Tisbury church
yard, Dorsetshire, which from the girth
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years old More wonderful, however,
than any arboroal phenomena in
Europe, are those presented by certain
examples of the North American cy-
press in Mexico In the gardens of
Chapultepec stands the so-called "Cy-
press of Montezuma which has a cir
cumference of forty-one feet and whose
age is computed at two thousand years.
1t is greatly surpassed by another cy-
press at Atlisco in the province of
Puebla, whose trunk has girth of
seventy-six feet, and a cavity capable
of containing thirteen or fourteen men
on horseback. The age of this tree was
computed by Prof. Asa Gray at either
three thousand four hundred and eighty
or two thousand three hundred and
ninety years, according to the maximum
rate of growth assumed for the first
century. Far older still is the great
cypress at Santa Maria del Tule, whose
age for the reason just mentioned is
variously calculated at five thousand
one hundred and twenty-four or four
thousand and twenty-fom years.
Even this vast antiquity is transcend
ed by the baobabs, or monkey-bread
trees, discovered by Adanson in the
Cape de Verde Islands, and to which
scientists attribute an age but little
short Of six thousand years. With these
Adansonias not even the big trees" Of
California can vie in length Of years.
Making every reasonable deduction for
errors Of observation, we may be Ger.
tain not only that in some Of the trees
here mentioned we see the oldest living
denizens Of earth, but that they are
more ancient than any human monu-
ment not excepting the pyramids Of
Egypt-N, Y, Ledger
The nraga