February 26, 1987 - A Tree-Lined Love AffairPage 10A /The Suffolk Times /February 26, 1987
A Tree -Lined
Love Affair
By PAUL STOUTENBURGH
There's a movement throughout
the state to update the 1923 list of
famous and historic trees. Sorry to
say, we here on the East End do not
enjoy the pleasure of truly big and
historic trees except for a few here
and there. Probably the most well-
Focus on
Nature
known is the big old sycamore that
stands watch over Orient on Route
25. It's old and a bit broken, but with
tender loving care it seems to be
doing well.
Another sycamore, or buttonwood,
equal in size dominates the historic
old doctor's house on Ackerly Pond
Lane in Southold. The immensity of
this tree can only be appreciated
when you stand beneath it and try to
put your arms around it.
Some of the tulip trees outside of
Southold are huge, also, but nothing
that would make them champions in
their field. Remember the beautiful
big elms that lined the streets of
Southold before the 1938 hurricane?
Trees make a town.
Biggest Poison Sumac
We did have one tree in Southold
Town that was the state's largest and
that was a poison sumac on Robins
Island. Historically it was the
largest, but nothing lasts forever.
The skeleton of this record sumac
now lies on the ground. With na-
ture's wondrous power of decay, it
will soon become part of the rich soil
where tomorrow's plants will grow.
I'll never forget years ago when we
were trying to save Robins Island, we
took a group of officials over to see
the island and try to have them un-
dertstand how important it would be
to acquire it and make an outdoor
educational center for future genera-
tions. We waled all over the island,
visiting its handsome clay bluffs on
the west and looking at its small
ponds and marshes that lured the
ducks and geese. We walked through
some of the old buildings which I
tried to convince the group could be
used for classrooms and laboratories.
1, _
Photo by Paul Stoutenburgh
HUGE SYCAMORE TREE - -This giant on Ackerly born in 1795, was said to have, as a small child,
Pond Lane in Southold has dominated the old Doc- stuck a twig in the ground during play, and the twig
tor's House for almost 200 years. Hannah Smith, grew into this huge sycamore or buttonwood tree.
Of course, my having been in the
educational field, I felt this use of Ro-
bins Island was absolute.
I was not quite ready for the re-
mark of one of the group when we
got back on the mainland. "The only
thing I saw on the island was a lot of
dead trees," he said. Here was a per-
son so conformed to the world of man-
icured lawns with everything just so,
he could not understand that here
was a natural woodland that grew,
flourished and died with no one re-
moving any of the dead wood. This
decaying of trees, limbs, branches
and leaves is part of the natural cycle
of things.
Copper Beech Saved
But back to trees. I love them. One
huge copper beech tree can be seen
at the west end of the four -lane high-
way in Mattituck. It was to have
been cut down when the highway
went through, but because of its
value and the protectiveness of its
owner, the road was curved leaving
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the handsome tree for all of us to
enjoy.
Then there are the handsome
weeping beeches at the north end of
Orient village, the one on First
Street in Greenport and the huge
ones on Peconic Lane midway be-
tween Route 48 and Route 25. In the
hollow west of the East Cutchogue
School there is an unusually large
bald cypress which seems out of place
this far north.
At one time almost every old farm-
house on the North Fork had its own
big black walnut tree but, because of
the 1938 hurricane when many were
lost and more recently the demand
for its valuable wood, we see few
black walnut trees today.
When we bought our place 32
years ago from a wonderful man
named Clayton Billard, we bar-
gained for a little sliver to the north
of the road that led into the property.
We wanted to square off our woods
where we were building. We dickered
back and forth and finally settled on
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a price with the provision that we
would he4er cut the woods down.
A Living Hedge
Later we purchased another parcel
to the east where strawberries had
been grown each year. The land was
all downhill and badly eroded. I plan-
ted willows in the low wet parts and
cedars and pines to 'form a living
hedge around the border. The trees
are 30 and 40 feet tall and the pas-
ture has held back the erosion.
It's remarkable what nature will
do if you give it a little time. If more
people would let the natural process
continue on their own property (I'm
speaking of large parcels), in no time
their land would have brush and
trees and provide a wonderful place
for wildlife.
In towns where there is more ad-
vanced planning, lawn size is kept to
a minimum and the remainder left
in open space. This has many advan-
tages -- less upkeep for the property
owner, less fertilizer entering the
groundwater and of course it pro-
vides areas for wildlife. Some day
we'll wake up to the idea that this is
the way to go.
Probably 99 percent of the trees we
see today are second growth, for most
of our land years back when our
country was young was under culti-
vation or in pasture land. It was the
way of life. Wood lots were continu-
ally cut for firewood and timber was
sawed into building materials. Vir-
gin forests are almost impossible to
find. Moores Woods in Greenport
comes closest to that concept on the
North Fork, but Bostwick Forest on
Gardiners Island is truly a virgin
forest.
A person who plants a tree has con-
fidence in the future. Though many
of us will not live to see the trees we
plant fully mature, we hope others
will enjoy our efforts.
HAVE, YOU PLANTED t�-. KEk