26th January, A. D. 1893. 



ESSAY 



BY 



GUSTAVUS A. CHENP:Y, of Worcester. 



Theme: — Historic Trees, and the Sylva of Worcester County. 



Mr. President: 



Trees have their attributes, peculiarities, traits and characteristics, 

 which are as pronounced and distinguishing as those discerned in the 

 great human family. Even as it is true that no two individuals, 

 among all the inhabitants of the world, are precisely alike in every 

 particular, so it is that of the countless millions of trees, wherever 

 found, no two are the same in all respects. As the growth and 

 expression of human beings, to a material extent, are influenced by 

 local surroundings, thereby giving to persons of one locality traits 

 peculiar to them alone, so it is that trees of one section assume an 

 individuality, which marks them from their fellows. As God never 

 repeats his creations in human life, neither does he in sylvan life. 

 As some persons are born with grace and beauty, and retain these 

 traits at every stage and to the end of life, so do they have their 

 counterpart in the world's sylvan life, as instance the tulip tree, 

 which at all periods of its life may be regarded as the personification 

 of stateliness and form. Yet again, as the blockhead of the ninth 

 grade later develops into the genius at college, so does the ungainly, 

 ill-formed and backward tree in early life later develop a faultless 

 shape, and outstrip its more promising companions in the vigor, luxu- 

 riance and abundance of its growth. The similarity and resemblance 

 between human and sylvan life might be portrayed almost indefi- 

 nitely, and as it continued the more marked and striking would be 

 the analogy between the two. 



Someone has said that a tree is the most beautiful object in nature. 

 They might also have added, with the same degree of truth, that few 



