A TREE LOVER 



By MRS. R. A. ELLIS 



THE painter's brush has paid its ruthless, an age so barren of the rever- 



highest tribute to the beauty of ence due nature, as to hurt, or mar, or 



the forest, whether in the delicate wilfully bring destruction upon this 



fairness of spring leafage, the opulent perfect handiwork of Him who made 



verdure of summer, the peerless tones trees and loves His creation. 



of autumn, or the subtler charm of win- Yet hundreds of chances were to be 



ter's bareness. The pen of poet, or of provided against. Carelessness and 



prose-master, has a hundred thousand ignorance, oftener than not, do the work 



times been devoted to the same theme of vandalism. Changes of every kind 



of enduring magic. The beauty, the must be expected and provided for. 



grandeur of the deep forest, the inef- Municipal alterations, yes, and errors, 



fable grace of a single perfect tree ! might be counted on, in this rapidly 



AVho has not once and again fallen un- developing college town on the hill 



der the spell of each ? tops. 



Yet only one time in the long train So it chanced that in his declining 



of years and the history of states do we years Judge Jackson formulated a truly 



find it recorded that this profound love unique plan for the protection of this 



and admiration for the splendid beauty admirable bit of nature's handicraft, 



of a tree has impelled a man to throw He would make the tree a property- 



around it legal protection reaching far owner, he said, and a landed proprie- 



beyoncl his own brief span and cover- tor, indeed, owning eight feet of 



ing, he hopes, the many-centuried ex- ground in every direction from its 



istence of the lordliest of oaks. great trunk. 



There is a little college town in north A novel transaction, you will agree ; 



Georgia, Athens by name, the seat of yet its legal soundness has stood the 



its university, where, several genera- test of a century. Still upon the record 



tions back, lived a man with the heart books in Athens you may read, written 



of a poet, a seer. Would you have ex- strong and clear, this record of the 



pected it in the most eminent jurist of deed, which nothing has arisen forceful 



his day? Among the sources of deep- enough to render invalid: 



est joy in this man's life, was a beau- "I, W. H. Jackson, of the County of 



tiful tree, growing upon his domain, Clarke, of the one part, and the oak 



splendid in size, matchless in symmetry, tree [here defining exact location] of 



the earliest always in vernal leafing, the the County of Clarke, of the other part : 



most regal in autumnal glories. Witnesseth, That the said W. H. Jack- 



The lawyer loved the oak with a love son, of and in consideration of the 

 rooted in his childhood, bourgeoning great affection which he bears said tree, 

 with his youthful joys, waxing more and his great desire to see it protected, 

 potent, more enduring, as manhood's has conveyed, and by these presents 

 prime came on, and the golden after- doth convey unto the said oak tree en- 

 time was foreshadowed. tire possession of itself and of all lands 



The tree-lover scarcely believed that within eight feet of it on all sides." 



there would ever come a despoiler so So it stood, so it stands. To this 



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