70 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1893. 



circunifereuce of fifteen feet five feet above the ground. It has a 

 trunk twenty feet in length, without a limb or flaw of any descrip- 

 tion. The second tree is the tallest of the group, and has a trunk of 

 thirty-five feet without a limb. At three feet it girths 10 feet and 7 

 inches. Above this point there is no perceptible variation in the size 

 of the trunk up to the place of furcation. The third tree has a trunk 

 of twenty-five feet, and at four feet from the ground it measures 

 twelve feet around. 



Fifty years ago this tree was struck by lightning. The bolt mor- 

 tised the tree from the first branch down to the ground. The mortise 

 is a foot in depth, fifteen inches wide, and as straight as a plumb 

 line. The bolt was seen to strike the tree by Mr. Phineas Gregory, 

 father of the present Phineas E., of Princeton. The fourth tree is 

 the largest of the quartette. It has a splendidly-fashioned trunk of 

 twenty feet without a limb. At four feet from the ground it girths 

 15 feet and 4 inches. 



In my rambles about Worcester County searching for big trees I 

 have found not a few which, at some time, have been struck by light- 

 ning, which in its destructive work mortised the south side of the 

 trunk in precisely the same manner as in the oak which I have just 

 mentioned. An instance of this kind may be seen on a white ash 

 tree near the residence of Mr. Gates, on Pleasant Street, beyond 

 June. It would be interesting to know what influences the lightning 

 to strike in that particular part of the tree, and to mortise it in the 

 manner described. 



Certain among the communities in AVorcester County contain intro- 

 duced trees, which have gained remarkable proportions. On the 

 grounds of Mrs. Persis S. Kimball, in Brookfield, there is a horse 

 chestnut which was planted early in the century by a Major Cheney 

 Reed. Aged persons in Brookfield have told that the tree was for 

 several years the only one of its species in the town, and it was then 

 an object of special interest and curiosity, and now the sum of its 

 years and the associations they have brought, together with its great 

 size, make it an object of keenest interest with the present generation. 

 A singular freak of nature is seen in the growth of this tree, as the 

 circumference of its trunk is greater at six feet than it is at two feet 

 from the ground. At this last-named height the tree girths 11 feet 

 and 6 inches ; at four feet from the ground its girth is 11 feet and 11 

 inches, or five inches larger than the girth at two feet, and at six feet 

 from the ground it lias a girth of 12 feet and 9 inches. Mrs. Kim- 

 ball, who has owned the tree for fifty years, says that the past season 



