FOREST AND STREAM 
951 
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| The Elm of Ticonderoga | 
For Many Centuries it Stood, and 
Nature May Supply Another, 
But Never Will Animal Life 
Now Exterminated be Replaced 
By An Occasional Contributor 
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T C. LUTHER of Saratoga Lake cut down 
and hauled to his saw mill within sight 
of the historic Fort Ticonderoga, on Lake 
Champlain, the other day, an elm tree that meas¬ 
ured 68 feet to the limbs, was 6o inches at the 
butt, and cut about 5,600 feet, board measure. 
The rings of the tree indicate that it was 720 
years old. 
Let’s see. That tree started growing in 1196 
A. D. About that time Richard the Lion Heart¬ 
ed was coming to the end of his reign in Eng¬ 
land, to be succeeded by the miserable John, 
from whom the knights wrung the Great Char¬ 
ter at Runnymede. When Columbus sighted the 
New World in 1492, the Ticonderoga elm was 
already nearly 300 years old—a stately veteran— 
and when that flower of France, Champlain, 
came down the lake now bearing his name, in 
1609, accompanied by his bands of wild Algon- 
quins, the elm of Ticonderoga had taken on the 
dignity of more than four centuries. No doubt 
Champlain saw it, in the pride of full arboreal 
beauty, for he was a close observer. And what 
sights passed before that old tree afterward! 
The wars of England and France, the Indian 
wars, the march of soldiers under the Lillies of 
the French Court and the Red of old England, 
led by such notable figures as Abercrombie and 
Montcalm, and last but not least, Ethan Allen, 
who demanded and obtained the surrender of' 
Ticonderoga “in the name of Jehovah and the 
Continental Congress.” A rare old tree was this 
great elm. We may even imagine and hope that 
under its kindly and spreading branches, Leather 
Stocking and Chinggagkook, his Indian com¬ 
panion, found shelter and rest The Last of the 
Mohicans preceded this last old elm by only 140 
or 150 years. 
Perhaps this tree had fulfilled its function in 
Nature and was due to be cut down and de¬ 
stroyed. One cannot but regret, however, that 
it exists no more, except in the shape of 5,600 
feet b. m. Anyway, if a new sprout springs from 
the roots of that elm, it will not be until 2636 
A. D. that another similar stately giant will rear 
its towering head to the skies. 
T HIS leads naturally to another phase of 
the same subject—conservation—not of 
trees particularly, but of wild life. Did 
it ever occur to you that Nature spent a million 
years as nearly as scientists can determine, in 
bringing to perfection almost any species of ani¬ 
mate life—a bird, for instance? Even a million 
years is not infinity, but its comparative dura¬ 
tion may be realized dimly by watching the long¬ 
er hand of your clock move across a one minute 
span. Now if you will only imagine that inter¬ 
val, scarcely noticeable, to be the 700 years or 
more that marked the life of the Ticonderoga 
elm, and that to make a million years that 700 
year minute hand would have to travel twice 
around the face of the clock, nearly, or the whole 
of a twenty-four hour day, you begin to have a 
slight perception of what a million years means. 
A tree may spring up, live one thousand years, 
die, and the process must be repeated one thou¬ 
sand times before a million years shall have 
flowed on toward Eternity. 
Here is the point. While it took Nature that 
immense span to complete her work—to give to 
man a perfect species that had been endowed 
to survive and perpetuate itself against ordinary 
dangers—man himself has the power to frus¬ 
trate and bring to an end Nature’s work. Na¬ 
ture finished before the era of man’s inventive 
genius began. Most lamentably has this truth 
been demonstrated. 
Thus within our own time, have we witnessed 
the extinction of many species of valuable and 
interesting character. These have gone forever. 
In one little span, so short as to be only a sec¬ 
ond’s tick of Time, man has destroyed an 
Eternity’s work. Of the millions and millions of 
passenger pigeons that once populated this land, 
the last specimen died—a solitary captive—-only 
a year or two ago. We do not know that any¬ 
body witnessed the bird’s death, but if so, that 
person saw something that may be characterized 
as a stupendous occurrence—the extinction of a 
species on which a million years’ operation of 
natural laws had been expended. No one knows 
who killed the last auk, the last Labrador duck, 
the last Arctic or Alaska curlew, or the last of 
other species; we do know, however, that they 
are gone. The danger of repetition is ever pres¬ 
ent, but fortunately the situation is not hope¬ 
less. If, however, we want to save c ir quail, our 
ruffed grouse, our wood duck, our woodcock, and 
even our song and plumage birds, to say nothing 
of our antelope, and similar faunal life, constant 
effort must be maintained. There is no reason 
why we should lose any of them. On the con¬ 
trary they should increase, if intelligent work 
is done, but there is no time to be wasted. 
We have mentioned above that in three-qar- 
ters of a thousand years the Ticonderoga elm 
may repeat itself, but never again will any ani¬ 
mate species that man ignorantly or selfishly ex¬ 
terminates, repeat itself. So, while your de¬ 
scendant, twenty-five or thirty generations re¬ 
moved, may sit under a new elm as magnificent 
as that cut down the other day on the shores of 
Lake Champlain, he will never see another of 
any kind of animal or bird swept away by his 
predecessors. Do you want him to reflect, as he 
realizes this, that you have achieved the unholy im¬ 
mortality that attached to the vandal who applied 
the torch to the Temple of Ephesus that his 
name might not be forgotten, or of the man who 
blew out the light that had burned without in¬ 
terruption for untold centuries before an East 
Indian shrine? 
We know, without being told, brother sports¬ 
man, on which side you are enlisted, but keep up 
the fight, not only for the enactment of good 
conservation laws, but their enforcement as well. 
The United Sportsmen’s Camp of Wilkes- 
Barre (Pa.) will introduce a number of meas¬ 
ures at the next session of the Pennsylvania 
Legislature. One of them will ask for the pro¬ 
tection of quail for three years by a closed sea¬ 
son; another prohibiting the use of silencers on 
shotguns in hunting, and others to prohibit hunt¬ 
ing before sunrise; prohibiting the killing of 
spike bucks, and to abolish the provisions of the 
law giving one-half of the fines to the informer. 
The Sportsmen’s Camp are interested in the 
betterment of present conditions and think that 
the game laws on the whole are very good. 
