APRIL. 81 



There stands in the yard of the Quaker meeting- 

 house, at Orosswicks, New Jersey, a perfect white oak — a 

 tree that for many miles around is without a rival. At 

 the surface of the ground the body of this tree is nearly 

 twelve feet in diameter, and it tapers upward quite 

 abruptly to its minimum cross measurement of five feet 

 six inches. At fourteen feet from the ground the 

 branches start, of which some twenty go to make a beau- 

 tifully symmetrical crown, gracefully curved above, and 

 extending more than fifty feet in every direction from the 

 trunk. When in full leaf, the tree casts a huge island of 

 delicious shade, and as the old meeting-house — built in 

 1690 — is not so old as the oak by at least a century, six or 

 seven generations of earnest worshipers have gathered 

 weekly within the shadows cast by it. 



There are tongues in trees, and often have I wished 

 that this one would speak out in no uncertain way and 

 tell us of the past ; tell us of the Indians that met on 

 these pleasant hills — for Crosswicks was a great council- 

 ground three hundred years ago ; and tell us, too, of the 

 earnest folk who settled here when, instead of a few 

 widely scattered oaks, there were boundless forests of 

 gigantic trees. 



There are still in existence a few pages of an old day- 

 book wherein is recorded the shipping from a point on the 

 creek near by of thousands of " hogshead staves of white 

 oaks " ; and, later, millions of feet of hewed timber were 

 rafted from this same place to Philadelphia. It is diffi- 

 cult, at this time, to realize that within sight of the old 

 meeting-house was felled a considerable portion of the 

 timber that supplied the market of that great city. 

 Lastly, came the days of cord-wood supplies, and this com- 

 pleted the destruction. Now, the builder of a new barn 

 must send hundreds of miles for timber stout enough for 

 its frame. 



