AMERICAN FORESTRY 



355 



J? 



HALL OF FAME" FOR TREES 



At Admiral Peary's college, Bowdoin, Brunswick, Maine, 

 is the Thorndike Oak, which has been given a place in the 

 Hall of Fame. In nominating the Oak, Gerald G. Wilder, the 

 Bowdoin Librarian, says: 



"At the close of the first of the Chapel exercises, one of 

 the students, George Thorndike, thrust an acorn into the 

 ground, and half in earnest, half in jest, said a great tree 



THE THORNDIKE OAK 



would flourish long after he had gone. He died in 1811, in 

 Russia, the first Bowdoin graduate to die, and the Thorn- 

 dike Oak is still flourishing and year after year shelters the 

 Seniors on Class Day. The date of the first of these chapel 

 exercises above referred to is September, 1802. The tree was 



transplanted in 1803 from its original position near Massa- 

 chusetts Hall to the President's garden where it has since 

 stood." It will be easy to understand the veneration in which 

 the old grads of Bowdoin wherever they may be, hold that 

 tree which is so closely identified with their college life. 



