A POEM AS LOVELY:

Champions Among Trees (Joseph Monninger, 10/26/02, Valley News)

[A] state champion honey locust (Glenditsia triacanthos) has stood since 1886 at the Saint-Gaudens museum in Cornish, New Hampshire. Although not nearly as large as the New England champion from Coventry, Rhode Island, I knew it was nevertheless a sizeable tree. I packed a picnic lunch, checked the location on the map, and headed off.

One thing about a championship tree, whether it is a state or regional champ: you can't miss it. As soon as you step inside the gate at Saint-Gaudens -- the home and studio of the famous sculptor who helped to establish an artist colony in the area around the turn of the last century -- the honey locust commands your complete attention. Set on the south side of a house called by Saint-Gaudens Aspet, a former inn, the tree is rigged with lightning rods. Otherwise, Chief of Park Interpretation, Greg Schwarz had told me on the phone, "The tree probably wouldn't be here." The hurricane of 1938 took down many of the largest trees in the park, but it left the locust standing. To the best of anyone's knowledge, the tree is in excellent health and can look forward to a continued long life. It is, however, the tallest fixture in the acreage. Its size has made it susceptible to lightning and heavy winds.

"We think the tree came from the Mt. Hope Nurseries in New York State," Ranger Schwarz told me. "Saint-Gaudens planted it himself. He also planted some birches near the Pan garden. Many of the birches are over a century old, and that's quite old as birches go. He was intimately involved in the landscaping. We have hemlock bushes that are quite ancient and form wonderful glades. We don't know too much more about this particular tree, the state champion. As a locust, it is one of the last trees to lose its leaves each fall and one of the last to `leaf-out' in the spring."

The tree is a hybrid and, as such, initially resisted grafting. But the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard has grafted it successfully, and a few small locusts grow on the Saint-Gaudens' grounds. Colonial woodsmen used the thorns of honey locusts for pins, arrow points, and animal traps. The wood, a heavy, dense lumber, was later used for agricultural implements, fence posts, and even railroad ties. As a hybrid, the thorn-less honey locust at Saint-Gaudens may have been favored at the end of the 19th century as an ornamental, much like certain hawthorns today. The tree originally belonged to the Mississippi Valley before migrating, over time, to the east.

By any reckoning, the Saint-Gauden honey locust is an immense and powerful tree. When last measured in 1998, the tree recorded a circumference of 561/2 inches and was approximately 100 feet tall. That puts it well behind the Rhode Island Locust in bulk, which has a remarkable 179-inch circumference, but the Saint-Gaudens' honey locust is as tall as the Rhode Island entry.

Which naturally puts one in mind of the poet so great he has a rest area on the NJ Turnpike named for him:

Trees (Joyce Kilmer):

I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks to God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

You know, growing up in NJ we must have read that in at least four different grades, but I'd never noticed that the first seven lines all start with "A".
Posted by Orrin Judd at October 26, 2002 1:04 PM