16 FOREST LIFE AND 



priated shows it to be a tree of great value. For ship and car- 

 riage building, and in the manufacture of implements of hus- 

 bandry, it is very valuable. This tree also holds rank on ac- 

 count of its size. In the " Report on the Trees and Shrubs of 

 Massachusetts," notice is given of one still standing in Brighton. 

 " In October, 1845, it measured twenty-five feet and nine inches 

 in circumference at the surface. At three feet, it is twenty-two 

 feet four inches ; at six feet, fifteen feet two inches. It tapers 

 gradually to the height of about twenty-five feet, where the stump 

 of its ancient top is visible, below which point four or five branch- 

 es are thrown out, which rise twenty or thirty feet higher. Be- 

 low, the places of many former limbs are covered over by immense 

 gnarled and bossed protuberances. The trunk is hollow at the 

 base, with a large opening on the southwest, through which boys 

 and men may easily enter. It had probably passed its prime cen- 

 turies before the first English voice was heard on the shores of 

 Massachusetts Bay. It is still clad with abundant foliage, and, 

 if respected as its venerable age deserves, it may stand an object 

 of admiration for centuries to come." 



The Charter Oak, in Hartford, Connecticut, is said to measure 

 at the ground thirty-six feet ; and in the smallest place above it 

 is eight feet four inches in diameter. 



THE BUTTON-WOOD TREE. 



This tree is " remarkable for the rapidity of its growth, espe- 

 cially when standing near water. Loudon mentions one which, 

 standing near a pond, had in twenty years attained the height 

 of eighty feet, with a trunk eight feet in circumference at three 

 feet from the ground, and a head of the diameter of forty-eight 

 feet." " Nowhere is this tree more vigorous than along the rivers 

 of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and especially on the Ohio and its 

 tributaries." ' General Washington measured a Button- wood 

 growing on an island in the Ohio, and found its girth, at five feet 



