TREES IN HISTORY

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21735, 17 August 1940, Page 11

TREES IN HISTORY

One of the oldest and mightiest of living trees is the Big Tree by the Zambesi, not far from the Victoria Falls, a baobab with a trunk over 66 feet round. Old as it is, perhaps 20 centuries, it is young compared with a Cyprus tree near Mexico City, a veteran said to be about 5000 years old. In California stands a giant redwood known as General Sherman. It is 102 feet round the base, 272 feet high, has 50,000 cubic of serviceable timber, and weighs about 6000 tons. It is believed to have been about 3000 years old when Caesar came to Britain. Tall as General Sherman is, he is beaten by another redwood tree which rises 363 feet. Zaccheus climbed into a tree to see Jesus pass by: Drake climbed a tree in Panama and looked in wonder at the illimitable Pacific. The Duke of Portland used to boast that he had a tree on his estate in Nottinghamshire so big that he could drive a coach and six through it. By the Great North Road stands a tree in which Dick Turpin is believed to have sheltered. At Wormhill in Derbyshire is a tree which grew through the floor of the house where James Brindley, the engineer, lived, and at Ross-on-Wye, we may see a tree growing in a church. At Penshurst in Kent is the oak planted in the garden of the house where Sir Philip Sidney was born. FAIRIES Fairies always come out at night And dance when the moon’s in sight, But goblins come out at night and prance, And always spoil the fairies’ dance. When the dawn is drawing near All the fairies disappear, Home they go weary for rest, And don’t wake up till the moon’s at its best. : (3 Marks to Jean Smith, age 11.)