1893.] ESSAYS. .71 



the florescence of the tree was more beautiful than ever, freighted 

 as it was with countless racemes of blossoms. 



On the opposite side of the street is the largest white ash tree I 

 have yet found in Worcester County. Two feet from the ground its 

 girth is 15 feet and 10 inches, and at four feet exactly 14 feet. As 

 for size it is a rarity among trees of any specie, but it is exceedingly 

 so among white ashes, as this tree in Massachusetts rarely obtains a 

 circumference exceeding ten feet. Captain Samuel W. Hastings, the 

 son of a soldier of the Revolutionary War, told me that the tree was 

 as large, apparently, when he was a boy as it is at present, and at the 

 time of his telling me this he was in his 88th year. 



Located on Oak Street, in the town of Grafton, near the residence 

 of Mr. Henry F. Wing, is a white oak tree, whose branches now, as 

 they doubtless did a hundred years ago, over-arch the highway and 

 reach well-nigh to the house. Like all white oaks that grow in the 

 open, this tree has a comparatively short stem, upon which is sus- 

 tained a broad and many-branched top. This last, in this instance, 

 is very uniform in its spread. The widest diameter denoted by the 

 spread of its branches is 105 feet. Clear above the bulge of the 

 roots it has a circumference of exactly 18 feet. 



The Mason elm in Shrewsbury, which is the most remarkable in- 

 stance of the willow tree type of elm I have ever seen, has a diame- 

 ter of its spread of 122 feet. 



A willow tree on the grounds of Mr. Arthur Taft, in Uxbridge, 

 has five branches which girth as follows : 10 feet and 7 inches, 9 feet 

 and 5 inches, 7 feet and 5 inches, while the fourth and fifth have pre- 

 cisely the same circumference, 7 feet and 8 inches. The aggregate 

 of their circumferences is 42 feet and 9 inches, and a diameter of 14 

 feet. 



On Brigham Hill, in the town of Grafton, is an elm tree that was 

 planted in 1746, and consequently is 147 years old. In the clear of 

 the trunk the tree girths 17 feet. 



In the town of Warren, on the farm of Rev. D. Olin Clark, is an 

 elm tree of decided individuality, even for an elm. At five feet from 

 the ground the tree girths 16 feet and 3 inches, the diameter of its 

 spread from north to south is ll5 feet and 4 inches, and from east to 

 west it is 96 feet and 5 inches. The stem of the tree completely 

 loses its identity at twelve feet from the ground, and at this point 

 nearly four branches start together to form its immense top, which is 

 so dense as to preclude the penetration of the sunlight in the grow- 

 ing season. 



