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one Daniel Boone:
D Boone
cilled a Bar
on Tree
in Year 1760
The inscription was clearly visible in 1880. When the tree fell in 1916, at an estimated age of 365 years, the carving was evident though the wording was partially obscured.
Still, carving should be discouraged no matter how fervent is the love of the carver. Incising allows entrance by spores of fungi that can do great harm to the tree.
Airlie Foundation in Warrenton has magnificent beeches, worthy of a special visit. These ancient trees are near the main building and easy to find. They must be at least 300 years old.
On the grounds of the 400acre Madeira School in McLean stood a beech that, at four feet, split into two massive trunks. I often stood in the emerald shade of that tree to wonder at its grandeur and age, which I guessed to be at least 300 years.
Surely, I thought, the nowextinct Passenger Pigeon paused during massive migrations to rest in this tree.. The pigeons also consumed beech nuts which made up an important part of their diet. When great stands of virgin beeches that stretched for uninterrupted miles were felled, the Passenger Pigeon started down the sad road to extinction. It had been the most numerous bird in the pre-European settlement North America.
On a hot August afternoon, a violent thunderstorm raged over the Madeira campus. Lightening flashed and the beech was struck. One of the two main trunks fell. The remaining tree was removed at ground level. I counted 350 annual rings. It was a sapling when the first settlers arrived in northern Virginia.
In his classic “A Natural ■ History of the Trees,” Donald Culross Peattie wrote of the American Beech, . . taken in all seasons and judged by all that makes a tree noble — strength combined with grace, balance, longevity, hardiness, health — the beech is all that we want a tree to be.” That says it all. I have nothing to add.
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