454 THE BIG TREE OF GENESEE FLATS. 



another year; a few dead limbs remaining. — J. J. Thomas, Union 

 Springs, N. Y. 



Genesee County. — Mr. Henry Ives, of Batavia, Genesee County, 

 New York, in a communication to the New York Farmers' Ckib in the 

 spring of 187C, states the result of experience in tree planting as 

 follows : 



Five or six years ago I planted two acres with four-year old seedlings of white elm 

 and soft maple into forest rows, 16 feet apart and 3 feet apart in the row. Now 

 the best of thiem are 20 feet high and 12 inches in circumference, and for thinning out 

 the rows I sell trees for more money than wheat would have brought grown for these 

 years, and I can continue to sell so until they are so large that I can take them for fire- 

 wood, and 1 am growing a good crop of orchard grass between the rows. So that these 

 trees in forest timber are paying as well, and are likely to pay for years to come, as any 

 other acres on the farm. I am cufting now the second crop of wood where the first or 

 original timber was taken off about twenty- five years ago, and last winter 1,000 rails were 

 taken by a neighbor from one-third of an acre of growth, besides a quantity of wood 

 from the top, and timber not making rails. Another neighbor used nice black walnut 

 lumber in building a fine farm house, sawed from the trees that he had helped i)lant 

 when a boy. 



The same writer mentions a soft-maple tree planted in the main street 

 in Batavia twenty-one years before, which measured 19J inches across 

 inside the bark, which cut 2^ cords of 18-inch wood. Other trees 17 

 years old measured 4 feet around at 2 feet from the soil. 



The "-Big Tree^^ of Genesee Flats. 



An object of noted interest in the "Genesee country" on its first settle- 

 ment was a white-oak tree which grew some rods from the banks of 

 the Genesee River, in the town of Geneseo, N. Y. The erosion of 

 the current having endangered its existence, General Wadsworth, 

 the owner, spent some hundreds of dollars in trying to save it, but 

 finally in the great flood of 1858 it was undermined, and the next spring 

 it floated some four miles down till it lodged. The general caused 

 sections to be cut and removed to his grounds, where they were placed 

 under cover and still remain, with a reasonable prospect that they will 

 continue to attract the admiration of the curious for generations to 

 come. 



The circumference at its base was 33 feet. The diameter of the larg- 

 est section, taken at 10 feet from the ground, is a little over 8 feet. No 

 record of its height was taken, but it was nearly or quite 70 feet. It 

 was not tall for its size, but at some 20 feet from the ground it put out 

 large branches, five or six in number, which of themselves were of colossal 

 size, being 2 feet and more in diameter. This made a very large bushy 

 top. On the side nearest the river, there came up, as if from the same 

 root, an elm 2 feet in diameter, which twined itself with the oak at the 

 roots and the body of the tree, so that they seemed almost inseparable. 

 This freak of nature attracted quite as much interest as the immense 

 size of the tree itself. — {Letter of Hon. Hezekiah Allen.) 



Jefferson County was originally well-timbered throughout, but 

 much of the forest has been cut away, and there are, at present, no ex- 

 tensive bodies of timber in one place. The " Pine Plains" consisted of an 

 ' extensive tract of white pine of dense growth and great value, extending 

 on the north side of the Black River from near Carthage to Le Raysville. 

 This timber has all been cut off, and the light sandy soil has been re- 

 peatedly ravaged by fires, so that there is scarcely any organic matter 

 left. A very small tract of this pine extended across the river in the 

 town of Rutland, and one pine tree, under the shelter of the hills, meas- 

 ured 288^ feet in height. Red cedar occurs only upon islands along the 



