104 CONVERSATIONS ON THB 



than they do anywhere else? All the large 

 trees you have mentioned except the mag- 

 nolias, seem to come to their greatest size on 

 the banks of the Ohio and Mississippi." 



" The principal reason is the great fertility 

 of the soil in that part of the country ; greater 

 perhaps than in any other part of the world ; 

 the climate too is favourable ; and another 

 reason is, that until very lately, the country 

 was very thinly inhabited, and the trees were 

 left to grow as long as they could ; in the 

 more settled States trees are cut down as soon 

 as they are large enough to be made use of; 

 but there they were suffered to stand till they 

 fell by their own decay." 



" And do the sycamores grow a long time 

 then, Uncle Philip?" 



"Yes, they are a long-lived tree, although not 

 so much so as the oak. A few years ago there 

 was on a little island in the Ohio one which 

 was measured by General Washington when 

 he was a young man, and then it was forty 

 feet in circumference or thirteen feet thick, at 

 the height of five feet from the ground ; 

 General Washington was born in 1732, and 

 therefore, it must be fifty or sixty years since 

 he measured the tree, and when I saw it, ten 



