17 



Seasons come and go, leaves ripen and fall, buds un- 

 fold into leaf and blossom, but the tree grows on and on 

 and recks not that the white headed old man who 

 thoughtfully reposes in its shade is the same person wlio 

 sported beneath its limbs in childhood's merry hours. 



In the good work of quickening an interest in forestry, 

 this Society has held an advanced position, and among 

 individuals interested, its present President is easily 

 leader. 



Nathaniel Hawthorne, the greatest story teller of New 

 England lore, tenderly related his journeyings in "Our 

 Old Home." Do we realize that while old England is 

 the old home to those of the stock who have remained 

 hereabouts, there is a vastly greater company of the de- 

 scendants of people of New England birth who have found 

 new homes in the great West, even to the Golden Gate 

 on the Pacific? To all these millions, Massachusetts and 

 Essex County are the old home. The standard elms and 

 the south-facing, long sloping back roofed houses with the 

 great stack of chimneys in the centre, to all these people 

 are home and history and the starting point of farailv 

 lines. 



Over in Quincy, in such houses as are identical in form 

 and construction and surroundings with hundreds in 

 Essex County, the two Presidents of the United States, 

 of Massachusetts birth were born. 



In Danvers, the room in which Israel Putnam was 

 born is kept just as it was when the tough old ranger 

 first saw the light. The whole County is dotted with 

 these old earth-hugging houses upon which the storms of 

 bleak winters have beaten, in vain, for centuries. 



