Since the balmy breeze of some far-off springtime caught those winged seeds from which America's most celebrated tree sprang, what changes have come to our land! When this patriarch was young, in the nearby woods Indians and fierce, wild beasts brushed past its companions. Perhaps the squaws fastened their linden cradles to their limbs while they planted their maize in the springtime, and when they had grown larger, orioles hung their corded hammocks amid their pendulous branches, with no fear of squirrels or that horror of all low nesting birds--the black snake. Summer after summer brought new verdure to their branches. Many autumns turned their wealth of emerald leaves to golden glory. Winter upon winter twisted their tough branches and weighed them down with snows until they now stand the monarchs of other days. There is the very spot where Washington took command of the Continental Army on July 3, 7775. How like the man who stood beneath it was this tree then. It had beauty, strength and grace, without signs of any weakness, proclaiming it the king of trees. Here once stood "a man of great soundness of judgment, moral self-control, intense fiery passions curbed by a will of iron. His sweet, tender soul had been enshrined in a worthy temple." His grave and handsome face, noble bearing and courtly grace of manner all proclaimed him king of men. But here still stands that great old elm, a nation's shrine. It struggles bravely to clothe with verdure its few remaining limbs, still speaking eloquently of those stirring days "that tried men's souls." Each green leaf in its aged crest tells of those noble patriots, whose memory of the glorious lives of self- sacrifice shall forever remain, verdant in the hearts of a liberty-loving people. This glorious tree, with its few broken limbs and scanty foliage, wears signs of many a wintry combat and summer winds surprise attacks "as heroes their scars," unbending still through all those years of toil and strife. Perhaps a few more years and this venerable tree shall yield to some wintry blast; its present site to be marked by a monument of bronze or marble. But how much more fitting would it be to plant a young tree where the old one stood. This would be a living monument where its cooling shadows would still fall upon the weary travelers "like a benediction on the road of life." Here pilgrims from Maine to California's farthest bounds might some day rest beneath its beneficent branches. We fancy how they will gaze in admiration at a new tree, whose symmetrical gray trunk rises like a mighty fluted column, from which graceful limbs spread out to form a glorious canopy. Its serrated leaves, each an emerald in that vast corona of verdure, will become in autumn a topaz in its gleaming crest. When the snows of many winters shall have clothed its slender, drooping branches with clinging drapery of star flowers and many springs thatched its myriad twigs with emerald that droop like sprays of art, it too