104 I n Touch with Nature. 



blind to all else the forest contains. What boots 

 it that some truly great man stood here two cen- 

 turies ago, if his coming was a necessity and not 

 a sentiment ? He who follows, not merely in an- 

 other's footsteps, but breaks his own path to do 

 homage to an aged tree, is the greater man. Tree- 

 worship is as old as religion itself, and a worthier 

 phase of it than hero-worship. 



It still rains, and I recall another May-day out- 

 ing when colonial history gave zest to the ramble 

 at the outset, but soon faded before the teeming 

 wealth of natural history. With a companion I 

 followed the general trend of the Towsissink 

 Creek, where yet stands a remnant of the primeval 

 forest, and came suddenly to a shallow basin 

 where bubbles many a sparkling spring, the whole 

 overshadowed by the out-spreading branches of a 

 single tree. A nobler temple was never reared 

 than a white-oak in its prime, and here was one 

 without a blemish ; a tree five feet in diameter and 

 more than one hundred in the spread of its 

 branches. But there are other and larger oaks 

 nearer home, so why come so far to visit this ? 

 It is a tree with a history; one that was blazed 



