1893.] ESSAYS. 59 



hole, ia the town of Chaillou, there stands a thickly branched pep- 

 per idge, or hornbeam tree, both of which names are applied to it, 

 but which is more correctly known as the tupelo tree. At Ave feet 

 from the ground it has a circumference of nine feet, five inches, and 

 a height of seventy-three feet. 



A person traversing the length and breadth of Worcester County 

 is quick to discover the contrasts in the sylva of its different sections. 

 The species and varieties of trees which constitute the sylva of 

 Worcester County are so many and varied as to furnish, in their 

 natures and peculiarities, many pleasing contrasts. The existence of 

 so much variation within so relatively small an area as is described 

 by the territorial limits of the county, shows how great is the adapt- 

 ability of its soil and climate to tree growth. But it is in the towns 

 of the northern section of the county, and especially those along the 

 New Hampshire border, that one finds this variation in the com- 

 position of the county's sylva at its best, and in the most striking 

 contrasts. " 



In the woods of the southern tier of towns the canoe birch is not 

 found, but it is in the woods about Winchendon. There it is asso- 

 ciated with the hemlock, ash, beech, chestnut, walnut, and the oak. 

 Unlike its congener, the white birch, it does not grow in clumps, but 

 stands alone. The northern borders of Worcester County are practi- 

 cally the southern limits of the canoe or paper birch. 



Another tree quite common to the towns in northern Worcester 

 County, but which is an entire stranger to the towns along the Con- 

 necticut and Rhode Island Hues, is the American larch. Its southern- 

 most habitat in Worcester County, so far as the writer knows, is 

 Spencer, where it is found in a few instances on cold hillsides. The 

 tree becomes more abundant in Rutland, and still more so in Hub- 

 bardston, yet is rarely seen in Princeton. In Gardner it is quite 

 numerous, and in the northern tier of towns it is still more plentiful. 

 A common name of this tree is hackmatack, and the people in some, 

 if not in all, of the towns in the northern portion of the county call 

 it the juniper. The juniper known to the central and southern sec- 

 tions of the county is a low-growing and wide-spreading shrub, and 

 this is correct in its name. 



There are specimens of the native larch in Hubbardston twenty 

 inches in diameter at three or four feet from the ground, and from 

 forty-five to fifty feet in height. These larger trees, however, have 

 not much of beauty of form and growth to commend them, unless 

 they have been free from interference by other trees. But the 



