I think the largest tree of the hard wood species I ever saw in this country, was near Bliss’s Tavern, in the township of Beverly, and it was called the Beverly-oak.[5] I was induced to visit this giant of the woods from the many accounts I had heard of its vast dimensions, and was, certainly, astonished at its size and symmetry. I measured it as accurately as I could about six feet from the ground, and found the diameter to be as nearly eleven feet as possible, the trunk rising like a majestic column towering upwards for sixty or seventy feet before branching off its mighty head. Mr. Galt, who was induced to visit this tree from my description has, in his “Autobiography,” mentioned the height of the trunk from the ground to the branches, as eighty feet; but I think he has overrated it. I was accompanied to the tree by the landlord, who remarked, “that he calculated that he should cut that ’ere tree down some day, for he guessed it would make enough rails to fence the side of a ten acre field” [5] “On the road to Guelph, a short distance from Galt, there is an uncleared portion of the primeval forest, on the edge of the township of Beverly, where, in those days, a small tavern, convenient to rest the horses of travellers, was situated. One day, when I stopped at this house, while my horse was taking his corn, I strayed into the woods, not many hundred yards, and came to a tree, the most stupendous I had ever seen. “At the first glance, the trunk reminded me of the London Monument, an effect of the amaze which the greatness of its dimensions produced. I measured its girth, however, at the height of a man from the ground, and it was thirty-three feet, above which the trunk rose without a branch to the height of at least eighty feet, crowned with vast branches. “This was an oak, probably the greatest known, and it lifted its head far above the rest of the forest. The trees around, myrmidons of inferior growth, were large, massy, and vigorous, but possessed none of the patriarchal antiquity with which that magnificent ‘monarch of the woods’ was invested. I think, therefore, that I was not wrong in imagining it the scion of a forest that had passed away, the ancestral predecessor of the present woods. “Had I been convinced it was perfectly sound, I would have taken measures for cutting it down and sending home planks of it to Windsor Castle. The fate that awaited it would have justified the profanation. The doubt of its soundness, however, and the difficulty of finding tools large enough to do it justice, procrastinated the period of its doom. I recommended the landlord of the tavern to direct his guests, from time to time, to inspect this Goliath of oaks.”—Galt’s “Autobiography.”