Ill 



A few huge oaks still remain in those pastures, where 

 they have afforded a mid-day shade to cattle since the 

 parent herds were brought from Devonshire, in Old Eng- 

 land ; — many an old homestead is graced by a gigantic elm, 

 which must have been transplanted to its present locality 

 far back " in good old Colony days, when we lived under 

 the King;" and there have been until recently several his- 

 toric trees of English parentage, such as the old Mulberry- 

 tree at Dummer Academy. 



It was not therefore to be wondered at, that when the 

 Massachusetts Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, at 

 an early period of its existence, offered liberal premiums 

 " to the person who shall produce from seed the best growth 

 of thrifty trees," either oak, ash, elm, sugar-maple, beech, 

 birch, chestnut, walnut or hickory, the first premium — a 

 gold medal, valued at fifty dollars — was awarded to Col. 

 Robert Dodge, of Ipswich Hamlets, (now IIamilton\ the 

 grandfather of Hon. Allen W. Dodge, so long the Secre- 

 tary of the Essex County Agricultural Society. 



Col. Dodge, after returning from his revolutionary cam- 

 paigns, had devoted himself to the cultivation of his ances- 

 tral acres, and he commenced planting acorns and nuts in 

 October, 1797. The land had that year borne a crop of 

 corn, and on two acres of it he planted in each hill either 

 four acorns or four walnuts, chestnuts or oil nuts, about 

 three inches deep. On another part of the same field, he 

 sowed, — to use his own expression — "broad-strow," with 

 acorns, the same varieties of nuts and the seeds of white 

 ash, all of which were harrowed in. 



"Just before the frost set in," said Col. Dodge in his re- 

 port, " I examined the hills in the nursery and found the 

 acorns generally sprouted, and some of the sprouts more 

 than two inches in length. The nuts appeared in the same 

 state in which they were planted. In the spring following, 

 I could only find four of the acorns which had sent up 



