| Picking
up the spares |
Robert
Leverett |
| Jan
30, 2007 06:16 PST |
ENTS,
On Saturday, Monica and I visited a farmer in
Whately, MA to measure
a sycamore on his land. The sycamore can be seen at a distance
and
promised to be a large one. It grows along the channel of the
Mill River
(a different Mill River than the one that flows through
Northampton).
The river was diverted when I91 was built. So all that is left
is a
wetland with an old beaver dam and the channel, which was frozen
over.
So access to the sycamore was easy.
Well, a lattice work of poison ivy and
bittersweet vines made getting
a good girth measurement problematic. I came up with 10.2 feet -
nothing
special for a sycamore. Height wise, well, I had to settle for
95.7
feet. Again, nothing special. Several pin oaks in what is a
spring
wetland measured between 7.0 and 7.6 feet in circumference and
all were
in the low 90's for height. Nothing special. So the trip did not
produce
anything of significance, but reminded me of how spoiled we are
to have
MTSF as our forest Mecca.
On Sunday, we headed to MTSF to dedicate
a tree to a dear friend who
is very ill. He had asked us to do that for him and we were
gratefully
complying. On the way, I spotted a white pine that I had not
previously
measured. It was not particularly conspicuous. However, it
proved to
have fairly worthy measurements (Girth: 8.9 ft, Height: 147.8
ft).
Another large pine near MTSF HQ measures (Girth: 9.7 ft, Height:
144.4
ft). The two white pines raise the total number in the
140-height class
and above to 246.
Bob
Robert T. Leverett
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