THE CAMERA 



153 



Guide to Nature a picture of a crooked 

 tree. Accompanying this letter you 

 will find a photograph of one that I be- 

 lieve is still more crooked. This is a 

 maple that was broken down years ago 

 and later started again to grow up- 

 ward." 



Of all gnarled, fantastic, picturesque 

 and intermingled growths the photo- 

 graph from Ellen Barnes, Battle Creek, 

 Michigan, surely excels. She writes as 

 follows : 



"I am sending you a photograph 

 which I recently obtained near Tarpon 

 Springs, Florida. The large tree with 

 spreading branches is a live oak, so 

 common in that vicinity, and the tall 

 tree which has grown solidly to the 

 oak, is the long leaf pine. 



"We know that there are numerous 

 instances in which trees of the same 

 kind have grown together, but I am 

 told that instances are rare in which 

 trees of unlike species are solidly 

 grafted as they are in this instance. 

 The spreading branches of the live oak 

 have assumed fantastic shapes not 

 fully shown in the picture. The trunk 

 of each tree is about fifteen inches in 

 diameter. So many tourists come to 

 gaze upon this natural curiosity which 

 is beautiful, as well as curious on ac- 

 count of its peculiar shape and health- 

 ful growth, that seats have been pro- 

 vided for the accommodation of the 

 visitors. 



"It has been the victim of many 

 'shots' from the camera but I have 

 never seen its picture nor its story in 

 print." 



The Romance of A Tree. 



BY THE REVEREND F. C. H. WENDEE, PH.D., 

 ASHFlElvD, MASSACHUSETTS. 



Many years ago, when the great elm 

 you see in the picture was a very young 

 tree, there lived in the little Massa- 

 chusetts village of Colraine, not far 

 from the cemetery, a poor man who 

 was almost entirely deaf and dumb. 

 He took a great fancy to the sapling that 

 grew up at the very edge of the ceme- 

 tery, and he watched over its growth 

 with tender care. In those days there 

 was a rail fence around the God's 



Acre, like those you have often seen 

 in the country. As the two main 

 branches of the tree began to come out, 

 the deaf and dumb man bent them un- 

 der the fence rail so that the tree began 

 to grow in an odd shape different from 



THE HARP ELM IN A CEMETERY. 

 Photograph by Rev. F. C. H. Wendel, Ashfield, 



Massachusetts. 



the other elms anywhere in the neigh- 

 borhood. 



After some years had passed, and 

 the sapling had become quite a tree. 

 the people of Colraine began to make 

 improvements. Among other things 

 they started to pull clown the old rail 

 fence around the village cemetery, and to 

 build a retaining wall. To do this, they 

 found it necessary to cut down a num- 

 ber of trees. But wdien they came to 

 this elm, its poor deaf and dumb friend 

 made the most decided objections. Of 

 course he could not make his protest 

 known by words ; but he used signs, he 

 uttered strange grunts and groans, and 

 he repeated over and over again, in 

 harsh, gutteral sounds, "No, no no !" 

 Seeing him so thoroughly "sot," his 

 neighbors gave in. He himself with 

 his axe carefully cut out the fence rails 

 around which his tree had grown. The 

 retaining wall was built with quite a 



