3d. One can visit it on wheels.
4th. Last, and best for the tired tourist, an excellent hotel at the very margin of the grove; Sperry & Perry, proprietors.
The grove extends northeast and southwest about five eighths of a mile. Its width is only about one fifth as great. It stands in a shallow valley between two gentle slopes. Its height above the sea is four thousand seven hundred and fifty-nine feet. In late spring or early winter a small brook winds and bubbles through the grove; but under the glare of summer suns and the gaze of thronging visitors, it modestly "dries up."
The grove contains about ninety trees which can be called really "big," besides a considerable number of smaller ones deferentially grouped around the outskirts. Several of the larger ones have fallen since the grove was discovered, in the spring of 1852; one has had the bark stripped off to the height of one hundred and sixteen feet, and one has been cut down, or, rather, bored and sawed down. The bark thus removed was exhibited in different cities in this country, and finally deposited in the Sydenham Crystal Palace, England, only to be burned in the fire which destroyed a part of that building some years since. The two trees thus destroyed were among the finest, if not the very finest in the grove. Among those now standing, the tallest is the "Keystone State;" the largest and finest, the "Empire State."
The following table gives the height of all the trees measured by the State Survey, and their girth six feet from the ground:
| Names of Trees. | Girth. | Height. |
| Keystone State | 45 | 325 |
| General Jackson | 40 | 319 |
| Mother of the Forest (without bark) | 61 | 315 |
| Daniel Webster | 47 | 307 |
| Richard Cobden | 41 | 284 |
| Starr King | 52 | 283 |
| Pride of the Forest | 48 | 282 |
| Henry Clay | 47 | 280 |
| Bay State | 46 | 275 |
| Jas. King of William | 51 | 274 |
| Sentinel | 49 | 272 |
| Dr. Kane | 50 | 271 |
| Arbor Vitae Queen | 30 | 269 |
| Abraham Lincoln | 44 | 268 |
| Maid of Honor | 27 | 266 |
| Old Vermont | 40 | 265 |
| Uncle Sam | 43 | 265 |
| Mother (and Son) | 51 | 261 |
| Three Graces (highest) | 30 | 262 |
| Wm. Cullen Bryant | 48 | 262 |
| U. S. Grant | 34 | 261 |
| Gen. Scott | 43 | 258 |
| Geo. Washington | 51 | 256 |
| Henry Ward Beecher | 34 | 252 |
| California | 33 | 250 |
| Uncle Tom's Cabin | 50 | 250 |
| Beauty of the Forest | 39 | 249 |
| J. B. McPherson | 31 | 246 |
| Florence Nightingale | 37 | 246 |
| James Wadsworth | 27 | 239 |
| Elihu Burritt | 31 | 231 |
The exact measurement of the diameter and the ascertaining of the age of one of the largest trees in this grove, was accomplished by cutting it down. This was done soon after the discovery of the grove. It occupied five men during twenty-two days. They did it by boring into the tree with pump augers. The tree stood so perfectly vertical that, even after they had bored it completely off, it would not fall. It took three days' labor driving huge wedges in upon one side until the monumental monster leaned, toppled and fell.
They hewed and smoothed off the stump six feet above the ground, and then made careful measurements as follows:
| Across its longest diameter, north of centre, | 10 feet | 4 inches. |
| Across its longest diameter, south of centre, | 13 feet | 9½ inches. |
| Total largest diameter, | 24 feet | 1½ inc's. |