TREES 85 



held up his army that he might enjoy an 

 Oriental plane tree, a tree probably more 

 than a thousand years old. And it is re- 

 corded, "He had its form wrought upon 

 a medal of gold to help him to remember 

 it the rest of his life." Tolstoy, returning 

 home and discovering that one of his 

 special trees had been cut down, ex- 

 claimed: "It is nothing short of murder!" 

 In one place in Walden, Henry David 

 Thoreau says, "Instead of calling on some 

 scholar, I paid many a visit to particular 

 trees." Indeed, it is clear enough that 

 there are men who come to regard par- 

 ticular trees in about the same affectional 

 way that they regard their particular 

 friends. John Muir, our famous West- 

 ern naturalist, speaks of loving trees and 

 living with them in profound intimacy. 

 Referring to Muir's tree-experience, one 

 sympathetic writer says, "Tree-friend- 

 ships are very precious things." 



An instance of this tree-friendship even 

 more notable than that of John Muir I 



