Jake Swamp Pine:  It is official   Robert Leverett
  Jul 03, 2006 08:29 PDT 

ENTS,

     As of noon yesterday, Jul 2nd, it became official. I confirmed the
Jake Swamp pine as having reached 168 feet in height - a threshold
against which all other trees in New England can be judged. The tree is
51.2 meters tall for those who prefer the metric system. Jake is the
tallest of 6 trees in New England that are 50 or more meters in height.
Massachusetts has 3 and New Hampshire has 3. That's it.

    Monica and I went to MTSF to take the new measurement. Monica sat
and meditated while I measured. The growth candle that I focused on was
222 ft away as measured with my Nikon. The reading from the Monocular
was at least 2.65 millimeters for the growth candle that I focused on.
An adjacent candle measures fully 3 millimeters on the reticle scale and
it may be the top of the tree. But I erred on the conservative side,
taking what I thought to be the top that I have mesured in the past as
the highest point of Jake's crown. With a number of growth candles, two
or three seem to continuously vie for dominance. But in actuality, the
choice of which is the absolute top is too close to call. For the chosen
top, the result is officially 168.08 feet or 168.1 feet. I had it as
exactly 168 yesterday, but made a mistake on my calculator.

    The full triangulation of top and bottom of the Jake tree, (not
relying on the pre-season baseline of 167.3 feet + new growth method
that yielded the 168.1) yielded 168.3 feet for the top of the second
growth candle - the one that had a reticle measure of 3 mm. However, for
the present, I will choose the 168.1-foot measurement as Jake's official
height. That determination is entirely safe. At season's end, I'll go
through the exercise again. I do believe that we'll settle on Jake's
post season height as somewhere between 168.1 and 168.3 feet.      

      Is the Chief Jake Swamp tree actually the tallest tree in New
England? How can we know? Obviously, we can't. But it is definitely the
tallest we have measured. In terms of proving otherwise, we will
continue our broad search. We can eliminate large areas of New England
as having viable candidates with nothing more than referring to a map.
The southern New England coastal areas are out. I never encounter truly
tall white pines there; 120 feet pushes their limits. Northern Maine,
Vermont, and New Hampshire are out. The higher elevations of Vermont,
New Hampshire, and Maine are out. There are still many places to look
that have heretofore only lightly been touched. In particular, western
Connecticut may have isolated stands or trees on private or conservation
lands. The Connecticut River Valley from the middle of Connecticut up to
where the Connecticut River moves inland into New Hampshire is fair
territory. However, I'm dependent on landowners, foresters, naturalists,
big tree hunters, etc. to propose candidates and often the trees they
think are candidates are fat pasture trees.

     But until such time as we locate some real competition, Jake is the
height champion and the Massachusetts pines rule in New England. BTW, I
measured a 15.0-foot circumference, 106.4-foot tall field pine on
private property in Williamsburg, MA. The tree is near a spring, giving
it a constant supply of water. This accounts for its much larger size
than competing trees show any potential for reaching. The general area
has a hard, gneiss basement rock. The relatively thin soils and hard
basement rock do not support the kinds of very tall trees that grow in
the Connecticut, Deerfield, and Housatonic River Valleys.

Bob        


Robert T. Leverett
Cofounder, Eastern Native Tree Society
ENTS News   Robert Leverett
  Jul 12, 2006 05:13 PDT 

4. On an admittedly more subdued scale of interest and importance, there
is good tree news from New England. On Friday, Will Blozan and I went to
MTSF and took new measurements of the Jake Swamp white pine, New
England's tallest tree. Using two monoculars, we both got 0.33
millimeters at 228 feet. That amounts to 1.0 feet of new growth,
unadjusted for the angle we were viewing the leader. With adjustment,
the growth is 1.14 feet and Jake isn't finished. The height of Jake is
now 168.3 feet and will likely end at 168.4 or even 168.5 feet. Will's
observation was that "Jake is crankin". That about says it all.   

Bob
One final measurement   Robert Leverett
  Jul 17, 2006 10:00 PDT 
ENTS,

   Groan! Yes, I measured the Jake tree one final time and yes it grew
more. Its final height will be 168.5 feet and its new year's growth
candle 14.4 inches. Most of the growth candles are 10 to 12 inches.

   I also met Dr. Art Johnson from University of Pennsylvania at MTSF on
Sunday. Art is conducting a study of carbon sequestering in forests of
different age classes and with different land use histories and MTSF
will be one of his study sites.

   He does studies all over the globe, so this is a really important
research project. More news to come on this topic. Oh yes, he is very
interested in Rucker Indexing and how we apply it. Needless to say I'll
be talking to Lee about a FMTSF-ENTS-U.Penn interface.

Bob

Robert T. Leverett
Cofounder, Eastern Native Tree Society
Back to my Mecca   Robert Leverett
  Aug 14, 2006 05:58 PDT 

Ed,

   Well, not to let ENTS down, I scurried to MTSF yesterday to do one
final measurement of the Jake tree’s current season growth. I just had
to do it. But in my two week absence, the Jake Swamp pine hadn't
extended its leader any more. I hadn't thought it would, but I had to
make certain. So, the 168.5-foot height for the season is firm.

What is most satisfying to me is that the local park staff is showing
pride in MTSF as having New England's tallest accurately measured tree.
It has taken quite literally years for the staff to embrace the idea
that MTSF has these great trees and that their existence can be a
legitimate source of local and statewide pride. The predominant local
preference is to convert all commercially valuable pines into
toothpicks, lawn furniture, pine flooring, etc., and while not all local
citizens feel this way, I do believe that the imprint of the majority
has heretofore muted local enthusiasm. Thanks to ENTS, this attitude is
definitely changing.   

   After measuring Jake's seasonal growth again, I went to the Elders
Grove at Zoar Gap and confirmed that: (1) two more great whites have
reached the 150 threshold, and (2) Saheda is now 165.2 feet tall. With
the addition of the two new 150s, MTSF's total stands at 81, second in
the Northeast to Cook Forest at 108 - as recently updated by Dale. BTW,
I'm updating the white pine list and will have it complete in a week or
so. I’m also experimenting with some new formats. The rest of you will
be the final judges of whether the format I have in mind is an
improvement or not.

 Lee,

Oh, BTW and not to forget the trees, the William Command Tree in MTSF
is now 155.9 feet tall. Its girth has not changed perceptibly. It is
10.3 feet. I intend to visit your tree in September and see it it made
159 feet. It should have, the last measurement was taken before the
growing season ended.


Bob


Robert T. Leverett
Cofounder, Eastern Native Tree Society