IN PRAISE OF TREES 



TO paraphrase Butler's remark about the 

 strawberry (was it Butler's?), doubtless God 

 could have made something more beautiful 

 than a tree, but doubtless He never did. In my 

 boyhood, it seemed a little curious to me that a cer- 

 tain man in our town should employ his Sundays 

 going around the country photographing our best 

 trees, interviewing "old settlers" to ascertain the 

 date they were planted, and finally writing a little 

 book about them, illustrated with his photographs. 

 The book, privately printed, was eagerly procured 

 and read by my father, who detected an error of 

 fact on page 37, regarding the span of the Nathaniel 

 Emerson oak, which resulted in much controversy, 

 and finally in a trip to the Emerson place with a tape, 

 and the discovery that one of the lateral branches 

 had been cut off some way back from the tip, be- 

 cause it was threatening the chimney of the house. 

 So my parent and the author were both right. Now 

 as I leave boyhood farther and farther behind, it 

 seems less and less curious to me that anybody 

 should spend his leisure in the gentle contemplation 

 of trees or become excited over their dimensions. 

 In fact, it seems curious to me that anybody should 

 find such occupation curious. 



My Berkshire house sits at the head of an ancient 

 orchard and looks, on one side, up a steep, high, 



