HISTORIC TREES 159 



proportions with an estimated age of six thousand 

 years. Both Montezuma and his Spanish con- 

 queror, Cortez, are believed to have sat under it. 

 During the war between the United States and 

 Mexico Major Lee and Captain Grant once met 

 there. Little did they know that they were to 

 become the two principal opposing generals in the 

 greatest civil war in history. 



Is it necessary to adduce further proof to show 

 how intimately the trees are bound up with the 

 progress of man on this whirling sphere of ours? 

 Since the beginning of time when Adam and Eve 

 lived in the Garden of Eden among the trees, we 

 have instinctively turned to them as the best and 

 most sympathetic symbol of the life and force which 

 persists through eternity. They are silent but ef- 

 ficient chroniclers. 



