TREES SURPASSINGLY INTERESTING
Added to their pleasure-giving there are their health administrations. None, who go into the woods, fail to feel the forest-refreshment to body and mind. Trees have many values and many attractions. They present such a wide diversity that they may be said to surpass in interest all other products of the soil. Their traditions, their ancient lineage, their physical properties are thought-absorbing; their beneficence and human-like habits touch a responsive chord in man. Much about them is as deep a mystery as the farthermost star.
FREAK TREES ATTRACTIVE
Tree shapes are generally beautiful even in distortion. Freak trees attract the attention of all travellers. Probably they cause more comment and speculation than almost any other phase of the forest. They excite wonder; they challenge our power of scrutiny and observation; they cause the beholder to stop, to examine and to ponder. They are sometimes inexplicable. They defy natural laws, as we know them, that govern tree life, in a way that baffles our understanding.
Freak trees often save the camper, the hunter and the explorer from disaster. Trees that do not look like the vast majority of their fellows compel attention and impress the memory, identifying locations, streams and trails, and thus often lead the lost like a guiding hand safely from the wilderness. The true woodsman consciously and unconsciously is ever looking for freak trees when he is traveling in a new country. Freak trees are landmarks, good guides, good friends.
NATURE AND ACCIDENT CAUSE FREAKS
Why do trees take on abnormal shapes? Is it something in the character of the tree or is it due to accident? The results of this contest indicate that tree-freaks are due to both causes the same as in the animal kingdom. It would seem that a close parallel to the fortunes and misfortunes of humanity may be traced in trees, which of things inanimate are the constant and most useful companions of men. Trees, like ourselves are products of their surroundings. They are favored or injured in their development by the changes that time brings in its march of years.
The Freak Tree Contest was for New York State trees only. The contest covered the period of spring, summer and fall in 1925. Many lovers of the woods took part in the contest and sent photographs far too numerous to publish in one leaflet. We have, however, reproduced within these pages some of the most interesting pictures. The contest was intended to encourage observation of the forest, to arouse interest in trees and thereby aid in creating public concern for the protection and increase of the forest.
MANY SPECIES REPRESENTED
Hickory, beech, maple, elm, locust, poplar, birch, ash, cucumber, basswood, hemlock, pine, cedar, spruce, sumach, and apple were represented in the contest. While practically all of our common forest trees evidently take on unusual shapes under favorable conditions the tree apparently most given to abnormal growth is the elm. There were four times as many photographs of freak elm trees submitted as any other species. Maple comes next with beech and birch following closely.