A TREE LOVER 



By MRS, R. A. ELLIS 



THE painter's brush has paid its 

 liighest tribute to the beauty of 

 the forest, whether in the dehcate 

 fairness of spring leafage, the opulent 

 verdure of summer, the peerless tones 

 of autumn, or the subtler charm of win- 

 ter's bareness. The pen of poet, or of 

 prose-master, has a hundred thousand 

 times been devoted to the same theme 

 of enduring magic. The beauty, the 

 grandeur of the deep forest, the inef- 

 fable grace of a single perfect tree ! 

 Who has not once and again fallen un- 

 der the spell of each ? 



Yet only one time in the long train 

 of years and the history of states do we 

 find it recorded that this profound love 

 and admiration for the splendid beauty 

 of a tree has impelled a man to throw 

 around it legal protection reaching far 

 beyond his own brief span and cover- 

 ing, he hopes, the many-centuried ex- 

 istence of the lordliest of oaks. 



There is a little college town in north 

 Georgia, Athens by name, the seat of 

 its university, where, several genera- 

 tions back, lived a man with the heart 

 of a poet, a seer. Would you have ex- 

 pected it in the most eminent jurist of 

 his day? Among the sources of deep- 

 est joy in this man's life, was a beau- 

 tiful tree, growing upon his domain, 

 splendid in size, matchless in symmetry, 

 the earliest always in vernal leafing, the 

 most regal in autumnal glories. 



The lawyer loved the oak with a love 

 rooted in his childhood, bourgeoning 

 with his youthful joys, waxing more 

 potent, more enduring, as manhood's 

 prime came on, and the golden after- 

 time was foreshadowed. 



The tree-lover scarcely believed that 

 there would ever come a despoiler so 



ruthless, an age so barren of the rever- 

 ence due nature, as to hurt, or mar, or 

 wilfully bring destruction upon this 

 perfect handiwork of Him who made 

 trees and loves His creation. 



Yet hundreds of chances were to be 

 provided against. Carelessness and 

 ignorance, oftener than not, do the work 

 of vandalism. Changes of every kind 

 must be expected and provided for. 

 Municipal alterations, yes, and errors, 

 might be counted on, in this rapidly 

 developing college town on the hill 

 tops. 



So it chanced that in his declining 

 years Judge Jackson formulated a truly 

 unique plan for the protection of this 

 admirable bit of nature's handicraft. 

 He would make the tree a property- 

 owner, he said, and a landed proprie- 

 tor, indeed, owning eight feet of 

 ground in every direction from its 

 great trunk. 



A novel transaction, you will agree ; 

 yet its legal soundness has stood the 

 test of a century. Still upon the record 

 books in Athens you may read, written 

 strong and clear, this record of the 

 deed, which nothing has arisen forceful 

 enough to render invalid : 



"I, W. H. Jackson, of the County of 

 Clarke, of the one part, and the oak 

 tree [here defining exact location] of 

 the County of Clarke, of the other part: 

 Witnesseth, That the said W. H. Jack- 

 son, of and in consideration of the 

 great afifection which he bears said tree, 

 and his great desire to see it protected, 

 has conveyed, and by these presents 

 doth convey unto the said oak tree en- 

 tire possession of itself and of all lands 

 within eight feet of it on all sides." 



So it stood, so it stands. To this 



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