ENTS,
Today I went to Wharton State Forest and Batsto State Historic Site again. I drove a sand road into the woods where there used to be a bridge over the Mullica River. This time I walked close to the river and found the old bridge abutments, on both sides of the river. I found one large pine that impressed me enough to measure it, but it was only 5' 8" in CBH.
After wandering around in there and taking lots of digital pictures I drove up to Batsto and went into the western end of the village where all the old worker's houses are. I measured the biggest Catalpa I found, which came out at 7' 6". I then measured the largest Buttonwood in that end of the village, which was between two of the houses. It measured up at 10' 5". There's an Osage-Orange tree near one of the houses, but I wasn't sure which tree it was since it seems that all the fruits had been cleaned up off the ground since the Fall. I then went out onto the county road and drove around to the main entrance to the parking area, east of the village, where there are two large White Oaks, one severely damaged but still very much alive. I measured the undamaged one, and it came in at 13' 4", the largest single-trunk tree I've measured yet. What an impressive tree. Since Batsto Ironworks was older than Weymouth Ironworks, it's not surprising that I found
 an older tree at Batsto. This 13 footer is clearly from the bog iron days of the village, in my opinion.
Pictures to come later, in my new Photobucket account.
Barry