182 



50 feet, one kind in India reaching 

 70 feet! But this story would be incom- 

 plete without mention of the bread- 

 fruit tree {Artocarpus communis) , na- 

 ti\e of the Malayan Archipelago, now 

 widely grown throughout the tropics 

 for the food value of its large football- 

 shaped fruits, which when baked taste 

 like something between a loaf of bread 

 and a baked potato. Mention of the 

 breadfruit calls to mind Admiral 

 Bligh's attempt in 1789 to bring seed- 

 lings across the Pacific to the West 



FORESTRY 



Indies, the mutiny on the Bounty, and 

 the colonizing of Pitcairn Island. 



Whatever facts of interest one may 

 glean from a study of these and other 

 peculiar trees, one significant impres- 

 sion can hardly be escaped: the more 

 one studies living things in their adap- 

 tations to environment, be they vege- 

 table or animal, the greater becomes 

 their mystery and the deeper the con- 

 viction of an intelligence beyond the 

 material, manifested wherever life may 

 be found. 



1 . Name a few of the oldest living organ- 

 isms on earth giving common names 

 and their age in years. 



2. Do the same in respect to height. 



QUESTIONS 



3 



Name the source and use of the follow- 

 ing products: turpentine, tung oil, lac- 

 quer, rubber, kapok, cork, chocolate, 

 coca-cola, chicle, palm oil, quinine, 

 copra, and cocaine. 



Edmund Schulman 



Tree-rings and History in the 

 Western United States 



Reprinted with the permission of the author 

 and publisher from Economic Botany 3:234- 

 250, 1954. 



INTRODUCTION 



age of the tree, and that the succession 

 of wide and narrow rings may be inter- 

 The common opinion that the preted as reflecting the histor\' of favor- 

 rings so obvious on cross-sections of able and unfavorable growth-years, is 

 most trees may be counted to give the indeed old— surely, the statement by 



