FOREST TREES. 31 



tury before, when seen by Kirclier, they were united, so that prob- 

 ably it had been one tree. The Forworth Cliestnut, in England, 

 was fifty-iwo feet in girth in 1820, when measured by Strutt. 

 Near Sanserre, in France, is a tree of more than ten feet in di- 

 ameter at six feet from the ground. It is supposed to be a thou- 

 sand years old." 



The largest measurements given of the Chestnut in this coun- 

 try are of one in Bolton, with an erect, undivided trunk forty or 

 fifty feet ; three feet from the ground it measured seventeen feet 

 in circumference. 



" Southeast of Monument Mountain, near the road leading to 

 Sheflield, in a pasture, an old Chestnut measured, in September, 

 1844, ' at the ground, thirty feet two inches in circumference ; at 

 four feet, twenty-one feet in circumference : the branches extend- 

 ed sixty feet.' " 



The Balm of Gilead, the Willow, of which there are twenty- 

 one species, the Ash and Bass-wood, the Poplar and Hemlock, all 

 aflbrd specimens of great magnitude, as well as possess properties 

 of much value ; to which list we may add the Hickory, chiefly 

 for the great variety of valuable purposes to which the wood is 

 appropriated. " Few trees contribute so much to the beauty of 

 woods in autumn ; the colors of all at that season are rich, and 

 each species has its own. The fruit of some of the species in its 

 wild state vies with the best of foreign nuts." 



THE FIR-TREE. 



" In its native forests the Fir-tree varies from two to ten feet 

 in diameter, and from one hundred to one hundred and eighty 

 feet in height. A stump is mentioned as still found on the Co- 

 lumbia Hiver, which measures forty-eight feet in circumference 

 at tlu-ee feet from the ground, exclusive of its very thick bark." 



