Bartholomew Cobble, Ma Bob Leverett
Jul 12, 2003 21:15 PDT 


 The huge cottonwood in Bartholomew Cobble has grown.
The very rainy spring and early summer did it well. It is 128.6 feet tall now
and it has even gained in girth. At mid-slope it measures a solid 18.8 feet.
This is one heck of a tree. At this point, the loss of crown of the Zoar Valley
tree and the gain in crown of the huge Bartholomew Cobble cottonwood puts it #1
in the Northeast. I also confirmed a 126.1-footer with a 9.8-foot circumference
and a 121.4-footer with a 10.2-foot circumference. This gives us 4 cottonwoods
in Bartholomew's cobble above 120 and brings the total number confirmed in the
state up to 8. Not bad.

Bob

[Bartholomew's Cobble is a 329-acre natural preserve located on the banks of the Housatonic River, in Ashley Falls, Massachusetts.]

Bartholomew's Cobble   dbhg-@comcast.net
  Jan 16, 2005 15:45 PST 
ENTS:
     The team of John Knuerr, Susan Scott, Holly Post, and myself visited Bartholomew's Cobble to remeasure the champion cottonwood. We spent lots of time shooting and reshooting different twigs. The final stats are height = 129.0, circumference = 18.8 feet. Its big tree points are 381. Its ENTS points are 2425. This is one of the great New England trees. To my knowledge there a re no 3,000 point trees in New England. The Sunderland sycamore yields 2849 points, and as such, is the largest tree in New England.
Bob
Welcome to new members and other stuff   Robert Leverett
  Jan 17, 2005 06:14 PST 

ENTS:

  ...

   A few more words on our Bartholomew mission of yesterday. The huge
Bartholomew cottonwood generates 2425 ENTS points. The "official" state
champion in Pittsfield beats the Bartholomew tree by 5 points.
Officially they are co-champions. The ENTS points for the Pittsfield are
2025. The Pittsfield tree has probably lost a little crown, but I doubt
it has ever been 100 feet in height. It's current dimensions are 86.9
feet tall by 23.3 feet around. So at its maximum height, it would have
been thinner, so its point accumulation probably never exceeded 2100 or
2200 at the extreme.

   The two huge cottonwoods present us with a testing ground for the two
systems for judging overall size. Using circumference in feet by height
in feet to generate one point total as opposed to the AF formula
generating another provides experienced Ents with an opportunity to make
comparisons of individual trees that we know intimately. The following
table shows three great sycamores in the Northeast, their AF points, and
their ENTS points. Will Blozan, Bob Van Pelt, and yours truly have all
seen and measured these trees. The measurements of the Pinchot and
Sunderland trees are more recent. They are Will Blozan's measurements.

Tree            State   ENTS Pts    AF Pts
Pinchot           CT        2718.6   465.0
Pine Plains      NY        2992.0   461.1
Sunderland     MA        2848.6   448

   Their individual shapes are sufficiently different to make it
difficult to visually compare them. However, I am inclined to rank them
more by the ENTS point system. Either way it is a close call.

   In the not too distant future, maybe we can pay the Pine Plains tree
a new visit and take updated measurements, get new digital images of the
three trees and post images and measurements to the website and have a
good general discussion of different approaches to ranking the three
equally great trees. Perhaps drawing attention to a well-intentioned
competition between the three can get ENTS some media attention.

I suspect that the Pine Plains tree has grown enough to push it up to
roughly the same as the Pinchot tree in total AF points and push the
ENTS points to maybe 3000. The possibility is indeed exciting. So that
possibility makes a visit back to Pine Plains even more important.


   Short of Bob Van Pelt, Will Blozan, and team coming out and measuring
the three for volume via Bob's protocals, we'll never know for sure, but
we can have a heck of a good time debating the subject of which tree is
the most voluminous.

Bob