Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-07-12
At White House Gate.

The bulletin tree is a tall, sylvan SEN
Most of us remember that when Garfield
was shot the hourly bulletins issued by
the doctors were tackled on the bole of
this tree. There was always a crowd
around it, and when the government of
fees let out the crowd became a mass
that blocked the pavement on both
sides of the tree from the ratings to the
street In the years that have passed
the Garfield tragedy has been forgotten.
Only the tree is left to tell the tale.
The Botanic Garden is green with his
toric trees. One, near the Avenue gate,
served as hitching post for John Quincy
Adams horse, way back in 1901, and
nearby are the peace" oaks which were
planted in 1863 from acorns brought from
kentucky by John J. Crittenden and
Robert Malloy, both of whom worked so
periodically for peace at the beginning
of the civil war. From the acorns of
these trees the late Supt. Smith raised
800 shoots, which We're planted on the
battlefield of Chickamauga. The peace"
oaks originally stood on the site now
occupied by the Grant monument, but
were successfully transferred.
In another part of the garden grows
young oak with gracefully outreaching
branches aquiver with shiny leaves. Its
parent tree guards the grave of Confu-
cius.
An American while sightseeing the
tomb of the oriental philosopher, who
wrote the six sacred books of the Chinese.
and who died 800 years before Christ was
born, picked an acorn that had fallen
on the grave and brought 1t to Charles
A. Dana, then the master mind of the
New York Sun. Mr.. Dana turned 1t over
to Representative Amos ]. Cummings,
who gave it to Supt Smith. And every
body knows without telling what the su-
perintendent did.
Not far from the "Confucius" oak Is a
beechnut planted by the late John A.
Bingham, who dearly loved trees, and at
a little distance grows another which
owes its existence to Garfield. who plant
ed it when member of the House.
Struck by Lightning
Close to the Capitol building stands an
arboreal Ajax, whose stripped bark of
fers contradiction to the theory that
lightning never strikes twice in the same
place. Elliott Woods, superintendent OF
the Capitol. can tell you that he has seen
the dome struck several times and that
on such occasions a tiny fork would dart
off at a tangent and strike the tree But
Ajax, sturdy of trunk and vigorously
sappy, defies each bolt and puts the the
DRY on that ever-pilng dump where most
old sayings go.
IL
is a dwarf chestnut: its trunk gnarled
and squatty, and with crooked branches
that give magnificent shade Tradition
claims that if you make a wish while
hugging the tree it Is bound to come true
Here's a proof:
A colored woman who used to drag heI
tired way through the park every nigh,
after a hard days service put her arms
as far around the trunk as she could
reach and wished her hardest for a bicy-
Gle. She had barely got out of the
grounds when she picked up a bicycle
lamp. If her arms had been long enough
TO reach clear around she would have
found a wheel She said So And she
certainly ought to know
A prairie man who came to Washing.
ton for the Inauguration discovered tina,
we waste too much ground on our trees
Ground was made for crops Trees arc
pretty, and all that, but when Won come
down to 1t, what are they good for ex.
cept for fuel and for building?
If he had put on his thinking cap he
might have recalled many trees with q
value not to be measured by cordwood
and lumber that grow in the fields of ira.
dition, history and romance:
A tree guards each of the two gates at
the ends of the world: the apple of Eden
that shades the entrance we come in nv
and the tree of life, that stands Mt the
outer portal. \ tree took the form of
Calvary's cross. and Buddha learned en-
Iightenment under the mystic branches
of the sacred Bo."