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MISC. PUBLICATION 295, U. S. DEFT. OF AGRICULTURE 



cause it is said that this tree inspired the owner of Sheerlund to begin 

 his forestry work. In 1909 he started the development of his beautiful 

 forest estate. 



TEXAS 



Matrimonial Oak, San Saba, a huge live oak commonly known as 

 the Matrimonial Altar, stands like a deserted giant in the middle of a 

 public road on the edge of the town. Tradition has it that, long 

 before the white man invaded the valley, brave and daring Indian 

 warriors and shy Indian maidens met beneath the boughs of this old 

 oak. It is a well-known fact that some of the oldest and most promi- 

 nent citizens of this section of the country were united for life under 

 this tree. Even now, in the spring, especially in June, as many as 

 three or four couples are married in the shade of the tree on a Sunday 

 afternoon. 



Marriage Trees — oaks on the line between Maryland and Virginia, 

 on the Eastern Shore. This division between the two colonies was 

 made in 1663, and in running the line a number of sturdy old oak 

 trees were selected as boundary monuments. On the northern side 

 of the line, in the shade of one of the Marriage Oaks, the Maryland 

 justices and parsons made marriage easier for runaways from "farther 

 down." 



WASHINGTON 



Koad of Remembrance — a thousand elms planted along 8 miles of 

 road near Seattle, as the beginning of Memorial Way, dedicated to the 

 soldiers of the State of Washington who died during the World War. 



HEADS OF TREE FAMILIES 



CALIFORNIA 



Parent Washington Navel Orange Tree. One of two trees sent to 

 Mrs. L. C. Tibbets, Riverside, in 1873, from the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, which had received 12 navel orange trees at 

 Washington, D. C, from Bahia, Brazil, in 1871. Propagations were 

 made from these trees by budding onto sweet orange seedlings in the 

 greenhouse at Washington and distributed to growers, largely in 

 Florida, but the variety was not commercially successful there. How- 

 ever, the oranges from the two trees sent to California were found 

 to be so superior that the trees became the foundation of the entire 

 commercial navel-orange industry of the Southwest and of most 

 foreign countries. One tree, which the executor of the Tibbets estate 

 gave to the city of Riverside, was moved in February 1902 to the little 

 parkway at the intersection of Magnolia and Arlington Avenues, not 

 far from its original location, and there it still stands. 



The other parent tree, which was transplanted to the courtyard 

 of the Glenwood Mission Inn by President Theodore Roosevelt in 

 1903, died in 1921. This Parent Washington Navel orange tree was 

 replaced by a "child" tree (fig. 30), which had been propagated 

 from it. (Reported by C. S. Pomeroy. associate pomologist, Bureau 

 of Plant Industry, U. S. Department of Agriculture.) 



