62 OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



Yet New England pines have matched it, and 

 more. Writing in 1846, Emerson tells of trees 

 here 250 feet in height and six feet in diameter. 

 One in Lancaster, New Hampshire, measured 

 264 feet. Fifty years before that trees in Bland- 

 ford measured when they were felled 223 feet in 

 length. The upper waters of the Penobscot were 

 long the home of mighty pine trees where it was 

 no uncommon thing to hew masts 70 to 90 feet 

 in length. In 1841 one was hewed there 90 feet 

 in length, 36 inches in diameter at the butt and 

 28 inches at the top. Such trees have passed, 

 now, almost from- the memory of living man. 

 Could we have them here in our State they would 

 be worshipped as were the druidical trees of 

 ancient European 'countries and the place of their 

 standing v^ould be made a park that they might 

 be visited by all, rich or poor. It seems a pity 

 that our ancestors could not have thought of this. 

 It would have been so easy for them to let clumps 

 of these wonderful old pines stand, here and 

 there. It is so impossible for us to bring one of 

 them back, with all our wealth and all our learn- 

 ing. 



If we may believe the geologists the pines were 

 the original tree inhabitants of our land, massing 



