50 



in the city is the Bertram elm which stands in the 

 Public Library grounds ; and, strange to say, it is a 

 comparatively young tree. It is fourteen feet and five 

 inches in circumference at five feet from the ground, 

 and yet it is positively known to be not over seventy 

 years old and probably a little less. What favoring 

 conditions have produced this remarkably rapid de- 

 velopment is not known. 



Mr. Charles Putnam, civil engineer, remembers that 

 the tree shook and bent as he climbed into it when a boy. 

 Mr. S. E. Peabody, whose younger days were spent in 

 its vicinity, has accurate knowledge of the small size 

 of this tree at about the same time, and Dr. Wheatland, 

 some years the senior of these gentlemen, well remem- 

 bers it as a stripling in Mrs. Wallace's yard. The age of 

 the Bertram elm, therefore, may quite safely be placed 

 at seventy years from the seed. In proof of the very 

 rapid growth of the elm under favorable conditions, 

 there is a tree in the rear of the museum building 

 which is but eighteen years old from the seed.. It is 

 thirty feet high and the trunk is three feet and four 

 inches in its smallest circumference, showing an in- 

 crease of 2.22 inches annually. The rate of increase of 

 the Bertram elm is 2.47 inches. Elms grow most rapid- 

 ly during the first seventy-five years of their life. The 

 rate of growth then decreases, and in elms of great age 

 it is very slight each year. The four elms in front of 

 the houses of Mr. Philip Little and Mr. Arthur W. 

 West, on Chestnut street, were undoubtedly planted by 

 Messrs. Nathan Robinson and Jona. Hodges, aboutl804. 

 They vary from nine and a half to ten feet in circumfer- 

 ence at five feet from the ground. 



The larger of the elms by Dr. Mack's house on 



