no INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



One of the most unaccountable tastes in the world to 

 me, is that of the man (and I have seen a thousand such) , 

 who can content himself to settle down in the middle of a 

 western prairie, without a single tree or shrub, either 

 fruiting or ornamental, around his dwelling, and some- 

 times hardly in sight. Such men may be honest, but they 

 certainly lack refinement, and lose one of the enjoyments 

 of life. 



In reading the writer's description of the occidental 

 plane (button wood or sycamore), reminded me of a re- 

 markable instance of the rapid growth of that tree. Mr. 

 Nathan Lord, who lived to near the age of ninety, on the 

 banks of the Shetucket River, in the town of Franklin, 

 Ct., when he was first married, carried four young trees 

 of button wood, six miles, on horseback, and set them out 

 near his house. While the planter of these trees was still 

 a hale old man (I think 84 years old), one of them was 

 uprooted in a gale, and he assisted to saw off five twelve- 

 foot mill logs, clear of limbs, the butt of the largest of 

 which was more than four feet in diameter, while the top 

 cut was but a trifle smaller, though I cannot remember 

 the exact size, or amount of lumber sawed from the tree. 



Few, now, who see the banks of this river lined with 

 this kind of tree for miles, are aware that all those ven- 

 erable looking old button woods sprung from the four 

 little sprouts transplanted by good old Deacon Lord, less 

 than one hundred years ago. SOLON ROBINSON. 



Lake Court House, Croivyi Poiyit, la., 

 Fehmmry, 15th, 1848. 



beauty, surpassed by few, if any, of those made from our native 

 woods. 



"(b) It might be questioned whether the lai'ch, the white birch, 

 or the fir, would serve for contrasting with masses of round- 

 headed trees, of great height; as these trees, when they arrive at 

 their full growth, in a great measure, lose the spiral shape of their 

 tops, and consequently cannot mend the defect in the landscape, 

 which the full-grown Lombardy poplar invariably supplies, what- 

 ever may be its age or size." 



