132 



THE CANADIAN H0RTICULTIJRI8T. 



persons shall endure. And when we 

 turn to the pages of Cohimella to learn 

 the food most used for cattle in his 

 day ; and to the plays of Plautus to 

 read with what twigs the Roman rogues 

 were beaten ; and to Evelyn to find out 

 what timber made the best pipes, 

 pumps, poles, ship-planks, beneath the 

 water line ; and to Galen and Pliny 

 for a sovereign remedy for all the ills 

 that flesh is heir to — we find that the 

 elm reigns supreme, and is nutritive, 

 corrective, medicinal, and imperishable, 

 alike. To my mind there gather around 

 this tree, also, historic associations at 

 once romantic and tender. One hun- 

 dred and fifty years ago. Captain John 

 Love well, of Dunstable, Mass., with a 

 little band of forty-six followers, started 

 in early spring to drive Pangus and his 

 tribe of Piqnackets from the fertile 

 lands which they occupied near Frye- 

 burg, Maine, and from which they 

 made their murderous assaults on the 

 white settlements. The march was 

 through pathless woods, and the expedi- 

 tion was one which required all the 

 strength and courage which man can 

 possibly command. Chaplain Frye, 

 who accompanied the little army, was 

 a young man, born in Andover, a 

 graduate of Harvard, an exemplary 

 youth, an accomplished scholar, and a 

 devoted servant of Christ, the profession 

 which he had chosen. On that beauti- 

 ful May morning, when Captain Love- 

 well's men were ambushed by the Indian 

 warriors of Pangus, on the shore of the 

 Piquacket Pond, Chaplain Frye was 

 one of the first to fall mortally wounded. 

 When he left his home to join the 

 expedition he planted an elm tree, in 

 that early spring time, on a command- 

 ing eminence in his native town, in 

 order, as he said, that he might be 

 remembered should he fall in battle ; 

 and there it stands at this day, a lofty 

 fiHX^ noble monument to the devoted 

 jpxmg Chaplain, putting on its green 



robe each year on the annivei-sary of 

 his death, and taking on its sad yellow 

 hue in the autumn as if in mourning 

 for him whose name it bears. And to 

 every son and daughter of America, 

 what a representative tree this is ! 

 Would you learn its significance 1 Go 

 with me, then, to that ancient farm- 

 house, standing as it has stood for more 

 than a century on that sunny slope 

 which our fathers loved so well. That 

 ancient dwelling, with its broad and 

 open front, receiving on its ample brow 

 the sweet south wind, and with its long 

 sloping, defiant roof in the rear, closed 

 firm against the invading north, the 

 type of our ancestral architecture. It 

 stands there still, as it has stood for 

 generations, gathered around and sup- 

 ported by the massive chimney, which 

 has so long sustained and warmed its 

 hospitable heart. It is a bright June 

 morning, and the sun is pouring in its 

 flood of light upon the narrow entry, 

 with its homespun carpet, and its steep 

 and winding stairway, leading to the 

 cheerful chambers, fragrant with sweet 

 herbs and the sweeter air of heaven. 

 From the sunken door-stone, trod into 

 earth by the footsteps of many a hardy 

 and honest generation, to the humble 

 roadside, the green and grassy slope 

 extends, telling its story of the joy and 

 happiness which have gathered on its 

 sod, and the sad tale also of sorrow and 

 woe, how young and old have been 

 borne out of that threshold, the child 

 and the mother, the youth and the gray- 

 haired father, amidst teai^s and sobs, 

 down to the silence of the grave. And 

 over all that scene the drooping elm 

 looks down from its towering height, a 

 witness of the domestic drama which 

 has been acted there for years, and now 

 the recognized type of those virtues 

 which adorned our ancestors, those pro- 

 tests and assertions which made them 

 great, the courage and defiance which 

 made us free. Do you think there ia 



