The Philadelphia Public Ledger says:

"As the great ages attributed to men have been doubted, and with good reason in many cases, it is not surprising to find the Prussian chief forester denying that trees grow to be a thousand years old. His researches put the extreme age of the pine at 570 years; of the larch at 429, the oak 410, and the red beech 245. There is a linden tree in Wurtemberg which is shown by local chronicles to be at least 438 years old, for in 1448 it was so old that it had to have its branches propped up. Seven horizontal branches are now sustained by stone columns, but the trunk is a mere shell, supported by internal as well as external masonry. It is said that the pine tree, although it reaches the greatest age in a sound condition, decays more rapidly when its decline sets in. The oak and some other trees continue to vegetate when reduced to mere shells".

This is what the Gardeners' Monthly has been contending for in connection with American forestry, where trees have a less tenure of life than in the more favorable climates of Europe. There are in America, as well as in the Old World, individual cases of trees, as well as of human beings, going on to a great age; but when we are asked for the average duration of life in the trees of the American forest, we may give in round numbers two hundred years as about the figure. For this reason the efforts that are being continually made for the preservation of our old forests, should be transferred to the planting of new ones.