Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 October 1893 — Will a Tree Live Forever? [ARTICLE]

Will a Tree Live Forever?

What do you think of the idea advanced by some prominent botanist that a tree, providing it meets with no accident, will live forever? De Candolle, an eminent French authority, says: “Trees are not subject to death, and, barring accidents and ravages of insects, will continue to live on indefinitely.” Gray, the noted botanist, also indorses the theory that, inasmuch as trees annually renew their youth, they are virtually immoral. His exact language is as follows: “The old central part of the trunk may decay, but this is of little moment so long ns new layers are regularly formed at the circumference. The tree survives, and it would be difficult for science to show that it is liable to death from old age in any proper sense of the term. —[St. Louis Republic.