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year that the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. It 

 was a sapling when the town of Topsfield was settled, 

 a large and vigorous tree when the farmers around it 

 answered the call to arms in the war of the revolution, 

 and it has been spared from the axe to see this country 

 from small beginnings become Inhabited by sixty mil- 

 lions of people. A wonderful existence truly ; not a 

 fancy picture but the story of the actual life of one tree. 



One of the five Francis Curtis oaks iu Boxford — 

 trees averaging twelve feet in circumference — recently 

 cut down, gave evidence, by its rings of annual growth, 

 of being one hundred and seventy-five years old. 



A tree cut many years ago on Miss Susan Putnam's 

 land, in Danvers, and which at that time was as large as 

 any white oak in the county, showed two hundred and 

 ten annual rings of growth, as counted by Mr. Sears at 

 the time. These figures corroborate what has been 

 said previously in these sketches, that there is probably 

 not a tree in Essex County over three hundred years 

 old. These estimates are farther corroborated by the 

 fact that when shipbuilding was at its height along our 

 coast, every merchantable oak, capable of producing 

 ships' knees or stern posts, was cut and sold for this 

 purpose, and it is only since the decline of shipbuilding 

 that white oaks have been allowed to stand beyond 

 their prime. 



Nor is it reasonable to expect that these trees should 

 not be cut. As a matter of business the farmer must 

 sell his trees as well as his potatoes or his hay. A 

 tree is ripe for the axe at a certain time, and unless it 

 is preserved for its value as an ornament to an estate, 

 it should be harvested. We should encourage the art 

 of forestry here in New England and look upon our 



