Some time since, Dr. G. L. Porter, of Bridgeport, informed me of a large tree of this species growing in the vicinity of that city. I have not seen this myself, but he visited and has kindly sent me the location and measurements of the two trees, which, with his letter, are as follows:

"Bridgeport, May 29th, 1885.

"Dear Dr. - By this mail I send a small box, containing some buds on the terminal branches of the large sassafras tree; the root and bunch of undeveloped blossoms and leaves are from large bushes at its foot. The tree itself is not yet in leaf. To-day we have seen a dozen or more similar trees, but not as large as the tree of which I will make subsequent mention.

" On the main road, over Holland Heights, two and a half miles west of Bridgeport, on the south side, half way up the hill, is a sassafras tree. Four feet above ground its circumference is seventy-eight (78) inches; the spread of its branches is thirty (30) feet, and its height is about fifty-five (55) feet.

"About one mile northwest (and two miles northwest of Black Rock), at the junction of Black Rock turnpike and a cross road, on the land of Andrew Nelson, Esq., is a similar tree, but of larger size. It stands upon a hill-side, and is included in a stone wall. Upon the lower or west side, seven feet from the ground, and upon the upper or eastern side, four feet from the ground, the circumference is one hundred and ten (no) inches; the spread of branches is fifty-six (56) feet, and the height fifty-five (55) feet".

To most persons who consider the sassafras as only a short or small tree, these dimensions are wonderful, and probably are not exceeded by any other specimens in the State. The largest of which I have any knowledge, is standing in the grounds of the Retreat for the Insane, in this city. This is sixty-nine (69) inches in circumference at three feet from the ground, and is about forty (40) feet in height. It was probably planted, with many other of the fine trees on the grounds, soon after the establishment of the institution, a little more than half a century since.

But I find, upon investigation, that the sassafras attains occasionally a very large growth. Michaux says, that while in the northern latitudes " it is only a tall shrub, rarely exceeding fifteen or twenty feet in height, yet, in the neighborhood of New York and Philadelphia, it grows to the height of forty or fifty feet, and attains a still loftier stature in some parts of Virginia, the Carolinas, and the Floridas, as well as in the Western States, and in upper and lower Louisiana." Dr. Jacob Bigelow says that it " arrives in favorable situations, to a tall stature, and large circumference." Emerson states that in Massachusetts, " the sassafras rarely reaches thirty feet in height and a foot in diameter. I have, however, measured some which were forty or fifty feet high, and nearly two feet in diameter. One was growing in 1842, in West Cambridge, which measured more than three feet through at the base, and rose without a limb more than thirty feet, with a trunk very straight and slightly diminished, above which it had a somewhat lofty and broad head. It was nearly sixty feet feet high, and had been growing by itself. It was felled and its roots dug up, to allow a stone wall to run in a right line. Such pieces of barbarism are still but too common.

A tree so beautiful and lofty, and of such rare dimensions, such an ornament to a bare hillside, sacrificed to the straightness of a wall!" There are doubtless many other large and beautiful trees in this State which are annually sacrificed for as slight reasons as the above.

It was stated in a newspaper item last year, that there was growing in the northern part of Georgia, a sassafras tree which was now twenty feet in circumference, but I have not been able to discover any authority for it.

I should be glad to receive accounts of any large or remarkable trees to be found in this State.

Hartford, Conn. [These are fine trees for so far north. The Editor has no note of the largest trees he has seen near Philadelphia, but is sure some must have been nine feet round. - Ed. G. M].