Russ Richardson's Fine Family Trees, Shelburne, Mass. Bob Leverett Jul 04, 2003 06:31 PDT  ENTS:    Gary Beluzo and I spent a delightful evening with Russ Richardson measuring two beautiful stands of white pines and an area of red oaks on his parent's land in Shelburne, MA. I had the opportunity to visit one stand of white pines with Howard Mason and John Richardson, Russ's cousin, several years ago. I saw the second stand from the road and measured a few trees from the road, but couldn't get to the best of them. I didn't go down into the ravine to measure the others. I simply will not go onto other people's land without an invitation. Fortunately I had one this time.    I'll get right to the numbers. Species    Girth           Height WP         9.2'             125.2' WP        10.0'             130.7' WP        10.5'             134.4' WP         9.5'             135.6' WP         9.3'             136.0' WP         7.8'             136.3' WP        10.0'             137.9' WP         8.5'             145.7' NRO       12.2'              97.0' NRO        8.9'             102.0' The splendid 145-foot white pine is the tallest I've measured on private family land in MA. The 12.2-foot red oak is a beauty. A nearby double measures over 15-feet around, but it is a coppice. Other worthy red oaks in the vicinity are 8 to 10 feet around and 90 to probably 105 feet tall. A sharp ravine offers many possibilities. With Russ's family's permission, I'd like to compute a Rucker Index on the trees on the property. I think it would be fairly high. There are numerous gorgeous oaks (white, red, and black) and around and sugar maples galore. The white pines and hemlocks are gorgeous. A huge white oak on an adjacent property to Russ's family's property is 18.4' in circumference and maybe over 300 years old. We didn't exhaust the possibilities. I wished we could have stayed longer and seen the couple of old white oaks that Russ's e-mail mentions.     What is noteworthy is that this area is all private land and as such has extraordinary trees. The Richardson's are superb caretakers of the land, which has an Indian history. My wife and I will be doing research to see if we can identify some of that history for Russ. More on this in a future e-mail.    For now our thanks goes to Russ and his family for the fine job they've been doing in preserving the heritage of the land. We are all in their debt. Bob Home