If laws can be enforced to destroy trees along the borders of public highways, it is reasonable to suppose laws may be made and enforced to restore and protect them in such locations. Ohio has approximately forty thousand miles of good public highways and ways that could well subserve the use of trees along their borders, at sufficient distances to give them room and opportunity to grow. A tree on either side at thirty feet distant would make in the aggregate a forest of ordinary distribution of several million trees, that could be owned, cultivated and protected by law. At the same time, an act of this kind would maintain the lawful width of roads and prevent encroachments by adjoining land-owners, and make all highways and byways avenues of beauty, health and pleasure. A fraction of a mill added to the tax assessment as a “forestry fund,” and expended in planting and protecting trees, would soon accomplish the work. Trees similarly arranged along railroads, canals and water-courses, and around district school-houses, with a law exempting from taxation all lands devoted exclusively to woods, would, in the combination, form an important factor in preserving the true ratio of timber to farming lands, the humidity of the atmosphere, and the healthful condition of the country. Trees are to be prized for many reasons, and admired for their longevity. There is, perhaps, no limit to the life of a tree. No inquest has ever rendered a verdict “_caused by old age_.” They are not dependent upon the heart for their systemic vitality. The potency of the living principle lies near the periphery and most distant roots and branches from the surface of the ground; and grow on and on, subject only to accidents that may end life. The expression may have seemed extravagant for even an enthusiast, when that slip from a cypress tree of Ceylon was planted, to say it would “_flourish and be green forever_.” It is now the historical and sacred Bo-tree of two thousand one hundred and eighty-three years, and still green and growing. While the Bo-tree is perhaps the oldest tree found in human records, it is not likely by any means, that it stands at the head in longevity. For trees keep their own books, and write their own history, in which may be found an account of passing years, from the beginning to the ending of life--a true autobiography--the eucalyptus of Senegal, the chestnuts at Mount Ætna, the oaks of Windsor, the yews at Fountain Abbey, the olives in the Garden of Gethsemane, or the mammoth trees in California are much older, making it quite probable that some of the first seedlings that grew after the last remodeling of the earth took place, are still green and growing. [Illustration: Sequoia Park.] It is stated on good authority that one of those ancient Jumbos blown down at Sequoia Park, California, was forty-one feet in diameter and showed six thousand, one hundred and twenty-six annual rings, or yearly growths.